Good morning. My name is Ronald Robillard, and I am the chief negotiator for Saskatchewan Athabasca Denesuline. I have here with me Barry Hunter, who is the adviser to negotiations as well.
I have a presentation that I'm going to read to you. This is a submission on behalf of the Athabasca Dene leaders and the membership of Fond Du Lac, Black Lake, and Hatchet Lake.
On behalf of the Saskatchewan Athabasca Denesuline, we would like to thank the committee members for this opportunity. Following seven years of litigation, the Athabasca Denesuline have been working towards a negotiated settlement for the last 18 years. With regard to the background of the negotiations, the Athabasca Denesuline includes Black Lake, Fond Du Lac and Hatchet Lake.
Our history, culture, and way of life span thousands of years and were predicated on the movements of the Beverly and Qamanirjuag caribou herds. Our traditional territory parallels the range of BQ caribou herds, including portions of what are now known as Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. There is also a map attached to that.
The recent political boundaries have dissected our traditional way of life, making it difficult to exercise our way of life. We are dealing with regulation of multiple jurisdictions. Other social changes have negatively impacted our culture, our economies, and our traditional way of life. There is a feeling of disrespect and disregard for our treaty rights.
During the seventies and eighties, the Athabasca Denesuline became concerned that Canada was negotiating—without consultation or input—comprehensive claim settlements with other indigenous groups in the NWT, including the determination of territorial boundaries over the area of current and traditional use by the Athabasca Denesuline.
Canada's position that the Athabasca Denesuline have no unextinguished rights in the NWT is based on the blanket extinguishment provision of Treaties 8 and 10 and because the Athabasca Denesuline also have treaty land entitlements in Saskatchewan.
Failed efforts to get the federal and territorial governments to recognize our rights led the Athabasca Denesuline to launch a court action in 1991. The AD sought declarations that we have treaty or unextinguished aboriginal rights and damages for infringement of those rights.
In 1995, our claim was recognized by the Indian Claims Commission, which concluded that the Athabasca Denesuline have treaty harvesting rights north of the 60th parallel and recommended that Canada formally recognize the existence of these rights and afford them section 35 protection.
In 2000, we began out-of-court settlement negotiations with the intent of resolving the litigation, reconciling lost opportunities, and recognizing Denesuline rights north of 60. Although this out-of-court settlement that deals with some elements of a comprehensive claims package like land and resource management, there are no subsurface rights, royalty-sharing or self-government provisions, or other elements of a comprehensive claim.
Our concern is that despite these limits, the AD draft final agreement still requires comprehensive release from all past and future claims to aboriginal rights.
While we find this objectionable in principle when considering the time and costs of litigation and Canada's terms for negotiation, following consultation with our community leaders and elders, we proceeded with negotiating a settlement with Canada that included some significant but not all elements of a comprehensive claim.
The negotiation process has been incredibly challenging due to multiple territorial jurisdictions, provincial jurisdiction, an entrenched bureaucracy unable to adapt to the unique situation, and overlapping interests among aboriginal groups. However, we have reached a draft final agreement with the federal crown. We would like to focus the remainder of our presentation on some of these key challenges and accomplishments.
First of all, on overlapping indigenous interests, through compromise and negotiations, a historic agreement was reached between AD and GKD and the Inuit in 2007, supported by Canada. This arrangement outlined the understanding between the parties on the negotiation of AD and GKD land, harvesting and resource management rights in Nunavut, and required amendments to the NLCA to accommodate these rights.
This has set the stage for concluding negotiations of the rights of AD and GKD in Nunavut. Discussions with Akaitcho and NWT Métis in the Northwest Territories have been ongoing, but it has been challenging to reach overlapping arrangements.
Canada has applied different criteria for establishing settlement boundaries for various indigenous groups. Only the Athabaska Denesuline and GKD have had to prove to Canada and GNWT their settlement area through land use and occupancy research.
On the other hand, the other indigenous groups are negotiating settlement areas with Canada and GNWT covering most of our traditional territory in South Slave Region without similar evidence of traditional use and occupancy. The overall situation differs from that of Nunavut as there are no other final land claim agreements in the South Slave Region. The draft AD and GKD agreements are written with placeholders for resource management and other provisions to avoid adversely impacting the rights of other indigenous groups.
The AD agreement is currently undergoing a consultation process with these other groups. With regard to territorial issues, the Government of the Northwest Territories, unfortunately, opposes the draft AD final agreement with Canada due to the quantum of settlement land and resource management provisions. This opposition is due to their unjust characterization of the AD as non-residents and not deserving of the same rights and benefits as other northern indigenous peoples. Their opposition caps years of frustrating, half-hearted participation of the GNWT and their ultimate withdrawal from negotiations. AD have met with GNWT and Canada many times at great expense to seek a solution to a land quantum issue and particularly to get the GNWT back to the negotiating table.
We've suggested several possible approaches, but these have been rejected. Neither has the GNWT provided us with any clear alternative offers to consider. We no longer see them as party to the negotiations or settlement. As a consequence to GNWT's opposition, Canada has offered to conclude a treaty with us bilaterally. Most of the difficult drafting and technical land-use-related issues have been resolved. Canada and AD must continue with the bilateral approach to settling.
Until very recently, the Government of Nunavut had been back at the negotiating table. Upon their return, they began providing comments on the draft final agreements and implementation funding, and insisting that they must be ratifying parties to the treaty. We see no constitutional justification for their participation as parties to our treaty. By allowing the territorial governments to delay conclusion of the treaty on the question of their participation as parties to the treaty, Canada is allowing the narrow local concerns of territorial governments to prevail and act as a veto over Canada's constitutional treaty obligation and paramount objective of reconciliation. In the end, treaty-making is a nation-to-nation endeavour.
Frankly, seven years of litigation and 18 years of negotiations are long enough. During this time we have dealt with nine Canadian governments, 14 federal ministers, six federal negotiators, four special ministerial representatives, and myriad territorial administrations. These governments have come from across the political spectrum, and our issues have never been partisan. Each change necessitated a political reset and resulted in a significant delay to settling our agreement. Such lengthy time frames impact negotiations' credibility, as well as the timeliness and relevancy of the agreement.
In conclusion, Canada and Athabaska Denesuline have reached a bilateral draft final agreement that settles a long-standing dispute 25 years in the making. It must proceed to immediate finalization. The opposition of the territorial governments cannot stand in the way. The territorial governments do not have a veto if they are included as ratifying parties over Canada's constitutional obligation to conclude our treaty on a nation-to-nation basis as part of the reconciliation process.
The Athabaska Denesuline thank you for this opportunity to make a presentation. We have been in negotiations for the past 18 years. It's been a long process dealing with multiple jurisdictions and dealing with overlapping issues and so forth. A lot of our elders have sat around the negotiating table with us since we started back in 2000. A lot of them are six feet under the ground now. A couple of days ago we lost a chief negotiator who sat on the Manitoba side; he wanted to see the final agreement. I think 18 years is long enough, and I hope this matter is taken seriously by the governments. Their policies have to change to accommodate today's reality of how we do things. All we want is recognition of our traditional territory.
Thank you.