NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
Progress has been made on the Dehcho First Nations' long awaited land settlement, says Grand Chief Herb Norwegian, after travelling to Yellowknife for a face-to-face meeting with the premier.
Dehcho First Nation Grand Chief Herb Norwegian says land claim talks with the GNWT have begun again and are moving forward. - Elaine Anselmi/NNSL photo |
"We've been wanting to have a meeting with him since they walked out of negotiations back in January and there was no discussion, no exchanges," he said.
"As a result of that, everything came to a standstill and we didn't like the mood that was cast over these talks."
In an effort to bring GNWT negotiators back to the table, Dehcho First Nations leadership descended on Yellowknife last week, sat in on a session of legislative assembly Feb. 11 and convinced Premier Bob McLeod to agree to a meeting.
"We had a very cordial, very short discussion," said Norwegian.
"He made time to meet with the Dehcho leadership and we then put our position before him and as a result of that, we were able to get some good results."
Norwegian would not go into specifics on the amount of land Dehcho wants, but said the leadership's priority in coming to Yellowknife was just to see negotiations continue.
"One of the big (goals) was to actually get the territorial government back to the negotiating table, which the premier said he would do-he would instruct his guys to get back to the negotiating table," said Norwegian.
"We're scheduled for another session next month, so we're hoping that would pick up speed, and we would be able to lumber right along."
The offer GNWT put on the table in January consists of 37,500 square kilometres of land, up from its 2009 offer of 33,488 square kilometres.
The Dehcho process was brought up in the legislative assembly Feb. 4 by Deh Cho MLA Michael Nadli, who called the state of negotiations alarming.
"I sense frustrations from both sides and hopefully the good will will prevail and the parties will still remain committed to at least coming together through an understanding," Nadli told News/North Feb. 12.
"There are fundamental gaps and yet that's the purpose of having a negotiation table. Hopefully those issues are being discussed and resolved as we speak."
The major challenge, Nadli said, has been that both parties are looking at different numbers, in terms of the quantity of land they are considering.
In response to Nadli's questioning in the House, McLeod said the government has created a working group and has spent two years negotiating a settlement with the Dehcho, a settlement that ended up rejected out of hand.
"The GNWT offer and what's been negotiated in negotiations with the Dehcho First Nations is the most favourable ever made in the Northwest Territories, if not Canada," McLeod told the assembly Feb. 4.
While he didn't deny it was the best offer the GNWT could offer at the time, Norwegian said the government can do better.
"We believe they can go further than that and so that's how we put it to them that," said Norwegian.
"In light of the numbers we're using, our Dehcho membership is greater than the Tlicho members, so whatever amount of land that would end up on our lap would have to reflect that. So that's basically how we're approaching it."
The neighbouring Tlicho First Nations' agreement includes 39,000 square kilometres of land, as well as subsurface resources in the areas of Behchoko, Whati, Gameti, and Wekweeti.
With the land claim agreement outstanding, the Dehcho, along with Akaitcho Dene First Nations, did not sign on to devolution last year by the April 1 deadline.
The territorial government agreed to share up to 25 per cent of all resource revenue with aboriginal governments who signed on by devolution, but the two first nations who haven't signed yet risk seeing their portion diminished if they don't put pen to paper by April 1 of this year.
Norwegian declined to comment on how this affects the Dehcho.
Norwegian said Dehcho leadership remains upbeat and is taking the GNWT's willingness to negotiate land claims as a positive step forward on the key issue.
"The last thing we want to do is stay on our side of the river and continue with the rhetorical bombardment, which is something that we don't normally like doing," said Norwegian.
"Sometimes these things pay off but by actually dropping our guard and coming here and trying to take a very happy, positive, uptempo approach - it's something that always pays off and we're quite pleased with that."
Premier Bob McLeod confirmed in an e-mail to News/North Feb. 13 his government is sending negotiators back to the Deh Cho in the coming weeks to provide information to residents about the offer. As well, he's committed to extending the Feb. 20 deadline to accept it.
