Biz group slams park
Lost development potential at Thaidene Nene: chamber
Jessica Davey-Quantik
Northern News Services
Monday, November 21, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Environment Minister Robert C. McLeod says plans for Thaidene Nene park are moving ahead - despite protest from the NWT Chamber of Commerce.
The proposed hybrid park will cover approximately 26,000 square kilometers around the East Arm of Great Slave Lake, with around 14,000 square kilometers to be managed as a national park and about 12,000 square kilometers to become either a territorial park or protected caribou habitat.
"The area keeps getting revised, so I think now it's probably somewhere between the size of Switzerland and the size of Belgium," said NWT Chamber of Commerce president Richard Morland.
The Chamber sent a letter to McLeod earlier this month, raising their concerns that the proposed park would limit economic and resource development in the area.
McLeod was not impressed.
"We were a bit disappointed in the tone of the letter," said McLeod.
The project, he estimates, has been in the works for more than 40 years. Parks Canada first proposed a national park in the vicinity of the East Arm of Great Slave Lake.
"The concern for us in the business community, of course, is that this area gets blocked off, economic opportunities that could have arisen that would benefit the entire Northwest Territories are simply lost forever," said Morland.
"Our assertion is that it's really premature, despite the fact that this has been going on for 44 years. There's still more work to do in order to really decide whether or not this is in the best interests of the whole territory."
Negotiations are still ongoing between Parks Canada, the GNWT, Lutsel K'e Dene First Nation and the Northwest Territory Metis Nation, as well as other aboriginal groups and residents.
