Jorge Barrera
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Aug 06/01) - Ottawa should co-operate with First Nations rather than work behind their backs with malice, said the national chief of the territory's umbrella Dene organization.

Bill Erasmus

"It makes more sense," said Bill Erasmus, national chief of the Dene Nation in an interview with News/North.

The comments came on the heels of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development announcing it would halt consultations with First Nations on revamping the Indian Act.

"We have agreed for the sake of our relationship...that we will have a 30 day cooling-off period," Indian Affairs Minister Robert Nault was quoted as saying last week.

The Assembly of First Nations (AFN), the country's largest First Nations lobby group, butted heads with DIAND over the consultation process The AFN gave the department an ultimatum three weeks ago to stop the process or face the threat of civil disobedience.

"We can bring Canada to a standstill. We do not want to go that route," Lawrence Paul, chief of the Millbrook band near Truro, N.S., said last month.

But the drama is playing out differently North of 60 with most aboriginal groups distancing themselves from the hard-line rhetoric employed by the AFN.

Support in the North is shaky at best for the AFN's outright rejection of the federal government's drive to revamp the Indian Act.

With only two reserves in the territory -- Hay River and Salt Plains -- the Indian Act, affecting registry, status, and financing, has less of an impact North of 60.

Erasmus said something in writing will be drafted by September. But with many groups in the North involved in their own negotiations with Ottawa over land claims, the AFN's pitched battle is not making much of an impact.