Hay River (Nov 27/06) - Two South Slave settlements are considering changing the status of their communities, in two very different ways.

Enterprise, a community of 90 located 38 kilometres south of Hay River, has entered the preliminary stage of becoming a hamlet. The settlement council has started collecting signatures on a status-change petition. They must provide at least 25 signatures and then the petition goes to the NWT Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs for consideration.

Winnie Cadieux, settlement leader of Enterprise, said they are working quickly to try to gain hamlet status by April 2007 at the start of the fiscal year.

They have sped up the process by sending out the petition at the same time as a survey, she said. Instead of a lengthy consultation process, residents can either sign the petition outright or request more information first.

This way it is up to the people whether Enterprise goes full steam ahead to hamlet status or waits and examines the issue more, she said.

"Whatever side the majority falls on is what we'll be doing," said Cadieux.

There are several reasons Enterprise could benefit as a hamlet, she said.

"It would give us more responsibility within our community," she said of the settlement council.

As a settlement, Enterprise cannot own land or buildings, pass its own by-laws, or receive long-term loans. As a hamlet they could do all of this and would receive extra funding. This could be somewhere around a quarter of a million dollars, according to David Kravitz, manager of community governance at the NWT department of Municipal and Community Affairs (MACA).

Cadieux said MACA suggested that Enterprise consider hamlet status in 2004.

According to Kravitz, there is a general move to encourage the change to hamlet status.

"It is really our wish that settlements will move up to a stage of greater responsibility," he said.

The Settlements Act, which governs the two South Slave settlements, was only intended as a transitional act, he said.

"Just until communities were ready to take on more authority," he said.

Most communities in the NWT began as settlements, he said, and then moved on to hamlet or charter community status later on.

Charter status is something some in Fort Resolution, a community of just over 500 people 150 kilometres east of Hay River, think could benefit the community. Presently, there are three governing bodies in the community - the settlement corporation, the Deninu K'ue First Nation and the Metis Council.

Lloyd Cardinal, president of the local Metis Council, said charter status would make sense for Fort Resolution.

"Our local government needs to be out of the Settlements Act," he said, "but I don't know if a hamlet would suffice our needs."

The Settlements Act limits the authority of the community's governing bodies, he said. He compares the Settlements Act to a car without wheels.

"The motor can be running real nice, CD player working, air conditioning on...but you can't go anywhere because there are no wheels," he said.

Charter communities are very similar to hamlets, said Kravitz, except they are First Nations communities.

"It allows them to have a joint band council and municipal council," he said. "The head of charter communities is also the chief."

Examples of charter communities are Deline and Fort Good Hope.

Cardinal said the idea of charter status has been taken to the people of Fort Resolution on three separate occasions, twice in the 1980s and once in 1998.

"It's failed three times," he said, but added the idea is still percolating. "If it comes around again it will open the eyes and ears of the community," he said.

Chief Robert Sayine of the Deninu K'ue in Fort Resolution said he thinks that instead of settlement council working to become a hamlet, the council should be abolished entirely.

"I don't even know why the municipal council exists in this community," he said.

Instead, the Deninu K'ue First Nation and the Metis Council should co-operate to govern the community, he said.

"I'm not saying they're not doing their work or they're no good," he added, "but everything would be better if (the two aboriginal bodies) were working together."

He wouldn't support a decision to become a hamlet, he said. "But it is a decision the community has to make."

The community won't have to make it any time soon. Though it has become a hot issue again due to MACA's encouragement, there are no plans to bring up the status change question any time soon, said Tausia Lal, senior administrative officer for the settlement council.

She said the idea re-surfaced in the last six months when community representatives attended a workshop put on by MACA. The workshop explored the idea of moving towards hamlet status.

However, "there needs to be work done in the community before we do it," she said.