Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The motion is an interesting one, and certainly we heard from the Aboriginal governments at the Bill C-15 federal government public hearing at the Explorer Hotel. I concurred with my leader in the Sahtu, Ethel Blondin-Andrew, when she spoke to the bill. In 1993 the negotiators of the Sahtu Dene/Metis, the Government of Canada and the Government of the Northwest Territories completed their negotiations of a comprehensive land claim agreement, and we signed off and it became law in 1993-94. We were the second Aboriginal regional group to settle a land claim, the Gwich’in being the first in the Mackenzie Delta, but further than that it was the Inuvialuit that settled before any of us did in the southern portion of the North.
When we put our agreements together in the Sahtu, our agreement guarantees that the Sahtu Dene/Metis participation in land use planning, in the management of renewable resources, land and water and the Sahtu heritage resources, this participation will be through the membership on boards and through consultation.
Twenty years ago when we settled our land claim, we understood in the future, once all the other regions had come to a point of settling their own land claims, we would look at a territory-wide board.
That’s what we understood. We said okay, but based on our elders’ guidance, we sought direction, we wanted decisions to be made as close to our communities as possible on our own lands, by our own members, with representatives from the Government of the Northwest Territories and the federal government. We had no issue, but we understood that we were going to change this once all the territories had a settled land claim, then we would come together. We’ve only done it halfway.
I say this because we didn’t know in 20 years, from 1993-94, what was going to happen. We only understood and we knew that these boards would not be forever, we knew that, but the way that it was brought down to our land and water boards wasn’t the way that we envisioned. We knew that we wanted control of our lands. We know that the government has done a lot of hard work and they totally agree with having a voice and making decisions on our own land and our water in the future. That’s a given.
So one of the questions we ask, can the land claim agreement be changed after it becomes law? They said yes, if necessary. Either the Sahtu Dene/Metis or the government can propose a change. If both parties agree in the proposed change, amendment to the agreement is made. Now, there’s the catch: if both parties agree in the consultation. The consultation was we were told this is going to happen. Members of the Sahtu Land and Water Board said, why is this happening? We’re okay. We’re doing okay. Mr. Hawkins raises some concerns and I also heard that from the Sahtu Land and Water Board. It’s not us, it’s what’s happening in Ottawa; it’s what’s happening down there. They’re having a hard time dealing with some of the issues here. We’re doing okay. We’ve got a structure, we have certainty, we have an institution.
So the consultation, to our understanding, was big brother to little brother, this is how you shall do it and we looked at the land claim, but somehow the spirit and intent wasn’t upheld. They found a way around it so they don’t have to open the land claim agreement. It’s constitutional law, they don’t have to open it. So we thought, my goodness, when we settled in ‘93-94, the spirit and intent of law of our land claim, this is a modern day treaty. History repeats itself again. We went in with a strong spirit, strong intent, this is how we want to work together, but we cannot operate with this type of attitude coming out of Ottawa. We agree that we want to work hard with the governments to own our own lands, have a say in our own lands, but we certainly still have an issue with the basics of consultation and them telling us how good our treaty is. That is totally not fair.
So, as our leaders have spoken, we have to deal with the reality. That’s the part of the reality that doesn’t taste very good in our mouths. It doesn’t
smell good, but that’s what we have to deal with. If we want to get ownership of our lands and resources, this has to come into play. It’s not very good, but that’s the reality of it. That’s the signal to the people of Canada, people of the Northwest Territories about the attitude of government. They sure fooled me as a former negotiator of the Sahtu Dene/Metis Land Claim that our guaranteed participation, our constitutional rights, can be played within a modern treaty.
So that’s something that we need to wrestle otherwise they’ll maintain a stranglehold on us, but they use sweet words and tactics to get what they want. I know that through this Bill C-15 we are going to receive some additional powers and responsibilities, but we’re still not yet released and totally free as a nation of people in the Northwest Territories, especially with what we negotiated in the Sahtu Dene/Metis. How sacred are our constitutional rights as Aboriginal people? If this is how they can come about making changes by using tactics of, well, you want control, it says in the land claim you’re going to have a full board. Well, I was there and I negotiated with David Osborn on this chapter and we had lawyers and that wasn’t the spirit and intent or what we were told. We thought we were going to have the real discussion.
So it’s quite the discussion we’re going to have around the North. Whether it’s right or not, but the numbers are there in Ottawa, the numbers are there in the Senate and the thing about this is, this is what we have to deal with. It’s going to go through Parliament and we’ll have to deal with it.
In closing, this motion is how is our government now, with this new legislation coming forward, going to deal with our Aboriginal governments and partners. Are we going to maintain some of Ottawa’s attitudes towards people in the Northwest Territories, or are we going to continue to explore how we can have that government-to-government relationship with our Aboriginal governments? That’s what this motion is calling for, I believe.
I’ll be supporting the motion, giving some recommendations to our government in the future so that it’s on record that we will start making some changes. I’m very encouraged that in five years we’ll have a review of our legislation. It just says review, it doesn’t say change or approve or make any type of changes to the legislation where we want to have full control back into the regions into the management of our resources and that. Thank you.