Jason Unrau
Northern News Services
Wednesday, June 27, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - Three outfitters have launched a lawsuit against the territorial government for sport hunting restrictions placed on caribou after Environment and Natural Resources reports that population is in decline.

"The entire industry is looking at a loss of sales in the millions this year alone," said John Andre, the American spearheading the class action suit that includes local outfitters Boyd Warner and Gary Jaeb. "When you tell everybody that the herds in the North are crashing nobody wants to come here and hunt."

The statement of claim filed Monday alleges ENR made its decision to cut outfitters tags from 1,260 to 750 based on "erroneous, inaccurate and incomplete information... relying on partially completed studies (that) have never been published and scrutinized by the scientific community."

The suit states that recommendations to the We'keezhii Renewable Resources Board (WRRB) on caribou management strategies and the subsequent amendments to the wildlife act that reduced outfitter tag limits breached the Tlicho Agreement.

To back up his argument, Andre has compiled ENR's own statistics to question the department's belief the Bathurst herd has declined from 472,000 to 128,000 since 1986. Andre contends that government-imposed herd divisions, and ever-evolving census methodology and changing calving grounds over the past 25 years have compromised the reliability of ENR numbers.

In anticipation of the lawsuit and with a separate judicial review launched by the three outfitters already in motion, Tlicho Grand Chief George Mackenzie spoke of his concerns at the May Dene Leadership meeting in Yellowknife.

"We don't want other organizations to use our agreement," he said. "It's not theirs to use... they didn't make it."

ENR and the Tlicho Government are in discussions on better consultation processes for all decisions that affect Tlicho territory and people, specifically ENR caribou management recommendations.

Tuesday both were urged in a letter from the WRRB to develop a "new, mutually-agreed-to wildlife management proposal for the Bathurst caribou herd."

It is the WRRB's view that the new joint proposal would replace ENR's original Dec. 15, 2006 proposal.

Speaking to the timing of the lawsuit that came a day before the WRRB's letter to the Tlicho and ENR, Andre called it coincidence.

"Whether or not there was a Tlicho agreement, I'd still be suing the GNWT," Andre said, adding he owed it to both the people of the NWT and his employees to expose what he called "environmental fraud."

Andre said all plaintiffs "intended no disrespect to the Tlicho Nation or agreement."

"The law is the law, the Tlicho agreement is part of the law and we want to respect it," he added.

Jaeb, of True North Safaris, whose two sons are Tlicho citizens and operate one of True North's lodges, said government never consulted outfitters and the only such opportunity afforded the $20 million-a-year industry was during hearings on the ENR recommendations in March.

"This whole thing is a real disappointment in the system. I always grew up under the notion that the government would be accountable and so far there's been no accountability," Jaeb said. "We don't have much recourse but try the judicial system."

The government declined comment on the lawsuit.