Dehcho negotiations nearing a conclusion, leaders say

Dehcho lead negotiator Mike Nadli says his team has made key progress on land and resource negotiations between the Dehcho First Nations and the Northwest Territories and federal governments.

The negotiations are known as the Dehcho Process.

Negotiators have been touring Dehcho communities to provide updates.

Chief Melanie Norwegian Menacho of Jean Marie River says her community's update, delivered in February, was a "very productive meeting."

"Previously they weren't open to making any sort of agreement on working together, but now it's looking very promising," she said of negotiations with different levels of government.

Nadli has been working with territorial and federal representatives to conclude a decade-long negotiation for an agreement-in-principle, the last major step before a finalized agreement.

The agreement-in-principle, or AIP, includes a list of 43 topics approved in 2001. It is designed to lay out areas of mutual agreement on resource management, land use and Dehcho First Nations members' continued access to fish, hunt and trap.

Nadli said an area of focus is "the idea of a Dehcho Resource Management Authority, which would be a collective body, which all DFN communities and member organizations would be involved with."

That authority would make land use decisions and be "almost like a regulatory-type body," he said.

Meanwhile, a Dehcho land use plan – in the works for more than two decades – is "about 98 per cent complete" according to Grand Chief Herb Norwegian.

At the moment, Nadli says the land use plan acts as a conservation tool to categorize land use activities within the region. He says the AIP will outline the plan's final role and function.

The main point of discussion about the land use plan relates to the "energy corridor" formed by the Norman Wells pipeline, which carries crude oil from Norman Wells to northern Alberta.

What happens to that pipeline and future pipelines, and how they interact with the likes of protected areas, are key matters, Norwegian said.

The plan will eventually head to a technical working committee for review, and then it will be brought to public review, where communities, local governments and industry will have their say.

This step will act as "a final stage of seeking approval and support and implementation of the land use plan," Nadli said.

Public input will be processed and integrated into the plan, then the plan will proceed to final approval – with governments adopting the policies and legislation needed to ensure the plan can be implemented.

Nadli says negotiators are on track to complete the land use plan before the agreement-in-principle, which he says has never been done before.

"It'll be unprecedented when, in fact, we reach that point," he said.

There are still hurdles to cross.

For example, Nadli said, a finalized agreement has to consider devolution, the process – almost 10 years ago to the day – whereby the federal government handed responsibility for public lands and resources to the GNWT.

As a result, he said negotiators are looking at "shared stewardship or joint decision-making on lands within the Dehcho."

Nadli points to the Edéhzhíe Establishment Agreement, which set up an Indigenous protected area in the Dehcho six years ago, as an example of an innovative solution where Dehcho First Nations members were recognized for their role as guardians of the land.

He said federal negotiators also want to ensure the proposed Dehcho Resource Management Authority reflects the framework of the existing Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, which governs how land and water are co-managed.

For Grand Chief Norwegian, reaching a system of shared decision-making is vital.

"We need to start making decisions jointly," he said. "This cloak-and-dagger approach has got to stop."

He says an interim agreement established at the onset of negotiations "explicitly, clearly says that we, affected First Nations, have to be consulted on every step of any type of transactions on land – but that never happened."

In the past year, Norwegian alleges the territorial government has transferred land title to private owners on disputed territory, which he asserts is a direct violation of the agreement.

"The territorial government literally is just giving land away, when that land could actually belong to the Dehcho government once we have a final agreement," said Norwegian.

"First Nations are just screaming blue murder about these kinds of things. They're just slowly being shafted by the local government and by government itself."

The Department of Environment and Climate Change, which is the territorial department responsible for land management, told Cabin Radio it cannot comment on specific cases.

"ECC conducts consultation on all applications for land transfers and leases in the Dehcho with Indigenous governments who may be potentially impacted by the disposition, in line with the Interim Measures Agreement," read a statement from the department.

The issue has come to the point where Norwegian says his office may begin issuing "buyer beware" letters to warn those who purchase land.

"If you buy this land, or you're interested in it, just be aware that at some point it's going to come up for objection. Be aware that you're going to be holding something that really doesn't belong to you," Norwegian said, paraphrasing what such a letter might state.

Even so, Nadli believes negotiations will prevail and the Dehcho – which, he says, defaults to Treaty 11 in the absence of a modern agreement – can become a leader in shared stewardship.

Canada has previously argued that through Treaty 11, Dehcho First Nations members surrendered title, ownership, jurisdiction and sovereignty of their traditional territory. (In a landmark decision, N.W.T. Supreme Court Justice William Morrow later rejected the argument that Treaty 11 extinguished Dene rights to the land.)

This time around, said Norwegian, "all the 'surrender' and language that's associated with that has been removed from those kinds of discussions. There is no relinquishment or surrender in these talks when it comes down to land."

"We are showing the rest of Canada that we can work out our grievances, recognize the merits of conflict resolution, and instil our faith in a negotiations process," said Nadli.

"We're showing Canada that those things are possible."

According to Nadli, an optimistic timeline would have negotiators agreeing on the land use plan some time in the next year to 18 months.

Nadli wants residents to understand the painstaking detail that goes into these negotiations.

"Indigenous governments – for every agreement that we reach, whether it's a bolded paragraph or provision in recognition of our rights – have to make a very rational and strong case why we need to continue to exist on our own lands," Nadli said.

"In our history, Indigenous people have never been part of this decision-making. But here we are.

"It's 2024 and we're looking at Indigenous governments [who] could ultimately make decisions on their own lands for their own communities, for program and services, for resource management decisions, on making decisions for their own fate, for their own future, for future generations. That has been a long time coming."

Simona Rosenfield, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Cabin Radio