Jorge Barrera
Northern News Services

Rae-Edzo ( Jun 12/00) - The Dogrib First Nation will have to wait until next year to have their final treaty agreement finalized.

The unique land claim, self-government pact is now not expected to be ratified until 2001 as negotiations have been bogged down in debate over treaty language.

"It's going to take a while for all sides to ratify the final agreement when it is complete," said Pat Scott, chief negotiator with the GNWT.

It was thought a final agreement on land claims and self-government would be ratified by late fall, once the federal government reviewed language in the certainty clause that the Dogribs consider offensive.

The current language surrounding certainty includes words like cede, release and surrender.

Now it appears it's going to take longer than expected to deal with the issues.

Word of the delay came after Treaty 11 negotiators wrapped up their monthly meeting in Yellowknife last week.

All sides are gearing up for the long haul.

"We've been waiting since 1921 for this treaty," said Dogrib chief negotiator, John B. Zoe, adding, "A couple more months is nothing."

The Dogrib, federal government and GNWT are smoothing out the gritty details from their agreement-in-principal signed on Jan. 7.

"We've made progress in a number of areas," said Scott, adding that there are still outstanding issues that need to be discussed.

Since the talks are confidential, no details were released.

What to do with the assets and liabilities of current community and regional governments once the treaty is ratified is still up in the air.

Under the new treaty, a new two-level form of government would be put into place.

The new government would have one level handling all Dogrib First Nations affairs and another level for community affairs.

At one point, the Dogrib hoped a final agreement would be ratified by the end of summer.

The combination land-claim and self government treaty could be the first of its kind ratified in the North.

"There are other treaties like this in negotiations, but ours is the farthest one along," said Zoe.

The next round of meetings will be held at the end of June in Rae-Edzo.