Doug Ashbury
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jun 07/99) - Efforts to get a proposed new resources economic development committee off the ground could run into political roadblocks, according to speakers at a conference last week in Yellowknife.

The proposed committee stems from last year's joint aboriginal-industry conference on resource development.

Last week, a follow-up conference was held to hammer out a plan on how to set up a resource committee.

At the recent meeting, Don Ference, president of Ference Weicker and Company, a Vancouver firm which has evaluated over 100 economic development agreements across Canada, described the proposed committee.

But the Nunavut government will want its own policy and to make its own decisions on economic development, Gordon MacKay, minerals, oil and gas director with the Eastern government's new Sustainable Development Department, said.

An NWT-Nunavut approach "may not be in the new territory's best interests," he said.

"Nunavut economic development decisions must be made in Nunavut."

MacKay made the comments at the second aboriginal-industry resource development conference in Yk last week.

Others at the conference said a lack of land claims act as a barrier to development.

"The Dogrib might get a (land claim) agreement in principle" with the GNWT, Dogrib Grand Chief Joe Rabesca said.

Rabesca said it will be difficult for him to support any resource development agreements without a land claim.

"It's not a threat. Our land claim comes first,' he said.

"As a first nation, the doors are not wide open for us, mostly because the land claim process is slow. Those are the doors we need to open. (The) only thing holding us back are land claim settlements," Yellowknives Dene Chief Fred Sangris said.

Lorne Tricoteux, associate director general of DIAND, said anyone who has experience in the North knows the "uncertainty, in terms of investment," associated with unsettled land claims.

"Settling of land claims is the highest priority the department has," he said.

"I want to ensure that nothing in what is done here overrides the Sahtu land claim. People have to know how important these claims are," Larry Tourangeau, with Sahtu Oil, said.

He also raised concern about how aboriginal representatives would be appointed to the proposed committee.

"I couldn't understand why DIAND is appointing aboriginal people. Why can't aboriginal people appoint their own," he said.

Tricoteux said he did not know were the suggestion came from.

"That's not the way we do business," he said.

Jim Moore, Indian Affairs and Northern Development assistant deputy minister, said, "I worry a bit about combining the NWT and Nunavut and stakeholders."

But, he adds, "We're clearly interested in working with communities and representatives here on developing this concept further."

"In today's tight fiscal environment, we will have to demonstrate partnership," Moore added.

And federal funding would have to lever additional funding, he said.

But in the NWT, there must be more control over non-renewable resources, said Joe Handley, deputy minister NWT Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development .

"The North must be the principal beneficiary of Northern development," he said. Handley said BHP, and an operating Diavik diamond mine, would generate $270 million a year for the federal government compared to $20 million for the GNWT.

And Ottawa will get $2 million a year from the Sirius Diamonds' cutting and polishing plant while the GNWT gets revenue of only $115,000 a year, he said.

Handley suggested proposals from last week's conference could be integrated into a broader economic strategy.