Well, again, I have to totally disagree with that from somebody who was at the negotiating table when the Northern Accord was being negotiated, in which the Dene-Metis were guaranteed that they will be able to negotiate a Northern Accord agreement throughout the Mackenzie Valley and they would take ownership of the royalties and resources throughout the Mackenzie Valley under the Dene-Metis claim. That is what was agreed to. That is what was committed to the Dene-Metis people during those negotiations. Nowhere was the GNWT going to be there to pillage the Dene-Metis lands at the 11th hour with a
group that doesn’t have an interest in the Mackenzie Valley and move forward. For me, that is exactly what is happening here, and to say that the Dene-Metis people down the valley are losing out, they’ve been losing out since the Government of the Northwest Territories moved here. They’re still losing out, because they’ve got a better working relationship with the federal government than they do with their own government.
This is the worst government relationship with Aboriginal people we’ve had in the Legislative Assembly since it’s been established, sad to say, and it’s because of the attitude of the Premier and the Deputy Premier towards Aboriginal people, especially Dene people. I think it’s important that this government, making those type of comments, saying that oh, the Dene-Metis people have been waiting this long, well excuse me, they’ve been waiting this long to settle the Dene-Metis claim throughout the Mackenzie Valley and they were committed to a land and resource arrangement where they were full participants, not sitting on the sidelines because they weren’t invited to the table or basically rejected from the table because the
people that were around the table didn’t like the idea.
So, again, I think it’s pretty clear that this government is wanting to go full speed ahead and leave the Aboriginal people in the dust again.