Dehcho vote to negotiate land claim with Ottawa

Delegates at the Dehcho First Nations' general assembly in Kakisa, N.W.T., voted Friday in favour of negotiating a comprehensive land claim with the federal government — a claim that would include negotiating for parcels of land, rather than seeking all of the First Nations' traditional territory.

But those negotiations will only begin if the federal government implements the Dehcho's proposed latest land-use plan and works out a self-government agreement with the First Nation, which is currently the only aboriginal group without a land-claim agreement along the proposed route of the Mackenzie Valley natural gas pipeline.

It's a big compromise for the Dehcho Dene, who have long claimed all the land in their region, located in the southwest part of the Northwest Territories.

The federal government doesn't acknowledge the Dehcho's claim. Earlier in the assembly, a federal negotiator told delegates that by signing Treaty 11 in 1921, the Dene gave up their land to the Crown. As a result, the Dehcho can now claim only parcels of federal land, the government has argued.

"I see a lot of frustration, pain. You don't know which way to go," Marie Lafferty of the Fort Simpson Métis said Friday, during a long and passionate discussion about land claims.

Chief Keyna Norwegian of the Liidlii Kue First Nation in Fort Simpson said the Dehcho First Nations — which represents her community and 10 other First Nations in the region — should not begin comprehensive land-claim negotiations, but stick to their original stance.

"Our people, our elders, every traditional person out there does not want to go that direction, and yet we're forced to go in that direction," Norwegian told the assembly.

An interim land withdrawal agreement between the Dehcho and Ottawa, which has protected much of the region they're claiming to date, is set to expire in October.

Many delegates expressed fear that Ottawa won't renew the interim land withdrawal agreement, which has virtually banned development on traditional Dehcho land, unless the Dehcho agree to begin land selection talks.

"If we're going to stand on our original vision of the Dehcho process — which, in my mind, is a really incredible thing — that implies that we're not going to compromise," Richard Lafferty of the Fort Providence Métis told the assembly.

"But if we're going to negotiate, that means compromising, and hopefully it's not always the case that everybody's mad when they walk away."

In the end, all but two delegates, one of them Norwegian, voted in favour of starting land-claim negotiations.

The Dehcho First Nations and the federal government will now need to agree on which land should be open for development, and what should be protected.

In 2006, the Dehcho put forward a land-use plan that calls for 60 per cent of the land they claim to be set aside for conservation. While environmentalists threw their support behind the proposed plan, the federal government rejected it, arguing that was too much land to preserve from development.

The First Nations' new plan includes special development zones that open 46 per cent of traditional Dehcho land to possible development.

"Overall, it's still a good plan, and there's a lot of very good stuff in it," Dehcho negotiator Chris Reid said. "But there have been some steps backwards from where it was two years ago."

Dehcho negotiators and land-use planners say they expect the revised plan to be completed this fall, at which point a special assembly will convene to vote on it. Once endorsed by the Dehcho membership, the plan will go back to the federal and territorial governments for approval.

The debate will then shift to whether the land-use plan will be implemented immediately, or not until land-claim negotiations are complete.