Road decision made already, MLA says
Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Dec 11/00) - The territorial government is pandering to Yellowknife and ignoring Dogrib communities.
That was the message delivered by North Slave MLA Leon Lafferty, the chiefs from the four Dogrib communities and grand chief Joe Rabesca at a press conference last Friday.
The Dogrib leaders focused on what what Lafferty said was an unspoken decision by government to build the road to resources out of Yellowknife.
"To me it looks like the government has made a decision ... that a road to resources is not going through Dogrib communities," said Lafferty.
The chiefs and Lafferty said an all-weather road to the Lac de Gras region should start North from Rae, not Yellowknife. They argue a power transmission line should be built along with the road, linking mining operations to the Snare hydro system.
"The mines' life is only 25 years," said Lafferty. "When all the diamonds are taken out of the ground it will be a road to nowhere, but if it goes through the communities it will be used forever."
Chiefs of Wekweti, Gameti, Wha Ti said an all-weather road would help reduce the cost of living in places where a litre of gas sells for more than $2 and cigarettes are over $10 a pack.
There is a winter road to Wha Ti and Gameti for about two months each year. Wekweti is never served by road.
"Every time I raise the issue of a road to resources going out of Rae, people in Yellowknife get scared," said Rabesca. The grand chief said people in Yellowknife need not worry about losing out if an all-weather road runs north out of Rae, because most Dogrib money gets spent in Yellowknife: "If an outlying community does good, Yellowknife will benefit from it."
Transportation Minister Vince Steen has said the government does not have the hundreds of millions of dollars it would take to construct an all-weather road.
Lafferty said he will be supporting no government spending on the Ingraham Trail past the Dettah turn-off. Lafferty said he believes any improvement to the Trail beyond the turn-off is an investment in a road to resources that would approximately follow the route of the ice road.
