Jason Unrau
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Aug 12/05) - Inuvik's Beaufort-Delta Self-Government office is set to close at the end of the month, but efforts to hammer out a final agreement continue.

Field worker for the Beaufort-Delta Self-Government office Shauna Kayotuk moved some things out of the Inuvik office Monday. At the end of August the office will close down as a cost-cutting measure in ongoing self-government dealings.

On Aug. 2, the Gwich'in Tribal Council (GTC) and Inuvialuit Regional Corporation (IRC) jointly announced a "new initiative" that will see efforts and resources focused at the community level to "ensure the constitutions of community governments are reflective of and responsive to their individual cultural and structural circumstances."

In order to facilitate a final agreement on self-government, each community needs to come up with a constitution laying out its own policies and procedures, all of which will play a role in the eventual regional government.

"We saw a lot of bureaucracy being created with the self-government office," said GTC chief operating officer Tom Williams. "Now there has to be a grassroots approach (to making community constitutions) and that has to be decided by the people in those communities."

Williams' IRC counterpart Roger Connelly agreed, adding that communities around the region have unique backgrounds and needs.

"There's a tremendous amount of pressure with the pipeline on local leadership and you don't have that same kind of pressure in outlying areas," he said of the rationale for approaching the matter locally.

To get the pulse of the people on the issue, each community will be assigned either a community development facilatator or field worker based on what the people feel is in their best interests.

The development facilitators will focus on existing local government structures and what needs to be done to prepare for self-government. Field workers, on the other hand, will be seeking community input, which will be "weighed heavily into that community's constitution," said Connelly.

Self-government chief negotiator Bob Simpson is on holidays until Aug. 17 and was unavailable for comment. However, he will remain in his position and continue working from an office at the IRC. In a self-government presentation at the July Petroleum Show in Inuvik, Simpson estimated the total cost of implementing a final agreement to be in the range of $40 million.

According to Connelly, the closure of the self-government office will free up an additional $100,000.

Since 1996, the federal government has been funding the self-government process. Last year, the GTC and the IRC each received $1.2 million.

"Substantially less than in previous years," said Williams.

According to self-government timelines, the feds expect the final agreement to be hammered out by the end of 2007.

"The government isn't going to fund this process forever," Williams said.