Devolution money sought by Dehcho
Court may be an option, says chief negotiator
Andrew Livingstone
Northern News Services
Thursday, April 23, 2015
DEH CHO
The Dehcho First Nations want the money it says is owed from devolution and has demanded the territorial government fork it over.
If the GNWT refuses, legal advisers to the regional first nations group believe it has a solid court case that could be won.
At the last of a series of regional public meetings to update members on the status of Dehcho Process negotiations in Fort Simpson on April 15, the negotiating team brought to light, in its opinion, the use of devolution by the territorial government as a "blackmailing" tool to force an agreement by withholding resource royalty payments.
"They have no right to blackmail us into signing the devolution agreement and if there is money available as of April 1 to aboriginal groups, then we should get our share," said lead negotiator Georges Erasmus.
Dehcho First Nations and Akaitcho First Nations stand to lose out on $1 million and $500,000 respectively - their estimated share of the first round of post-devolution resource revenues - by not signing on to devolution by April 1.
Now that the date has passed the process to join becomes more complicated, as first nations will be required to negotiate with both the federal and territorial governments rather than just the latter.
A letter was sent to Premier Bob McLeod and the territorial government by Dehcho Grand Chief Herb Norwegian requesting the $1 million be paid to the first nations. A response to the letter hasn't been received, however, Erasmus used strong language suggesting anything but a yes would force them to take the territorial government to court.
"If they don't send it to us, our legal advisers are telling us we have a number-one case to go to court and force them to give us the money," he said to an audience of 30 members.
The territorial government is working on a response to this letter, according to the premier's spokesperson Shaun Dean.
In a written response to questions to the Deh Cho Drum, the territorial government said it isn't "holding any resource revenues back" from the first nations. However, the response seems to contradict this claim.
"Should the DFN sign on to devolution, the DFN would be entitled to a share of resource revenues from public land in the NWT," stated the e-mail.
The territorial government has agreed to share up to 25 per cent of its resource revenues with aboriginal governments, all of which have signed on except for Dehcho First Nations and Akaitcho. The nearly $1.5 million from this past year's royalty haul won't be distributed to the two groups. The GNWT and its devolution partners will determine what happens to any amount of resource revenue collected last fiscal year that would have been available for aboriginal governments that have not signed on to devolution.
At the core of its position, Dehcho First Nations legal counsel believes the territorial government is withholding money because the group, along with the Akaitcho, don't support the GNWT's agenda and therefore are being punished and bullied into making concessions on land claims agreements in order to gain access to resource royalty money.
"It's not reasonable they should be able to withhold money that is owed," said Chris Reid, head legal adviser to the negotiating team.
Negotiations have been all but non-existent in the past few months after a war of words erupted in the public sphere and in the media over a controversial offer by the territorial government on land quantum. Correspondence between Norwegian and the premier over the course of the first few months of 2015 indicated the offer from the territorial government was, in fact, take-it-or-leave-it, and the premier had contradicted himself publicly on threatening to end the negotiation process.
However, the negotiating team met with territorial and federal government teams on April 21 at a hotel in Yellowknife to discuss a number of issues, including land quantum. Media were barred from the event at the request of the territorial government, which the Dehcho First Nations reluctantly agreed to.
Erasmus told the crowd at the April 15 meeting that the issue of land hasn't been on the table in almost a decade.
"Up until now we have not been able to talk about land so this is a big deal," he said, adding it was approved for the meeting's agenda in a conference call early last week. "Land and land management is essential to this. For nine years we haven't talked about it and if we can deal with this, the rest of the issues will move very quickly."
The GNWT said the reason for media being barred was to address the Dehcho First Nations allegations regarding the territorial government's conduct in the negotiation process.
"While the GNWT firmly believes these allegations are without merit, the serious nature of theses DFN allegations requires that they be addressed to each party's satisfaction prior to the resumption of negotiations," the e-mailed response stated.
