NORTHWEST TRIBAL TREATY NATIONS IN THE NEWS

Northern fund hit over lack of aboriginal seats

By JEFF NAGEL, TERRACE STANDARD
NORTHWEST aboriginal leaders are disappointed they’ve been given little role in controlling a new $135 million northern development fund set up by the province.

“We are disappointed there hasn’t been greater attention to First Nations participation,” said Gerald Wesley, who co-chairs the Northwest Tribal Treaty Group. “We don’t feel that we’ve been involved at all.”

Just one of five interim appointees named Friday by Victoria to the board of the Northern Development Initiative Trust is aboriginal – Kitamaat village chief councillor Steve Wilson. The other four are Northwest Community College president Stephanie Forsyth, Hugh Jones of Williams Lake, Lita Powell of Fort St. John and David Bruce Sutherland of Prince George. They’ll sit until May 1, overseeing the large $50 million fund, by which time the province will name five permanent board members.

Another eight board members will be reps sent by four regional boards, that each control $15 million funds. Seats on those boards have all gone to mayors, regional district chairs and MLAs. The remaining $25 million is set aside to generate income to cover NDI costs in perpetuity.

Wesley said he’s pleased with Wilson’s selection, but said aboriginal leaders hoped for more – that perhaps all five provincial appointees would be native, rectifying the lack of aboriginal seats when the NDI was unveiled.

“We feel that First Nations across the north shouldn’t be excluded from participating in the initiative,” Wesley said.

There is a separate $15 million fund planned for aboriginal communities between Prince George and Vancouver affected by the deal to give CN control of B.C. Rail. But Wesley said it won’t benefit aboriginal people west of Prince George. He said it’s unreasonable to have no participation on the other Northern Development Initiative boards from aboriginal people, who make up a significant part of the northwest population.

The Northwest Tribal Treaty group, an aboriginal umbrella group, has been working on what it says is a broad-based economic strategy for the north, with an emphasis on overcoming development obstacles and forging new partnerships between aboriginals and others that can be exploited in attracting investment. Skeena MLA and forests operation minister Roger Harris has strongly praised the group’s work.

“We thought he was very supportive of our concept and our vision and our efforts,” Wesley said. “And that he would be bending over to make sure things like this didn’t happen.”

Harris said the four regional boards are transitional – the mayors and others now on them were put in place temporarily and they’ll decide on the permanent makeup of the boards. Aboriginal leaders – along with other people – may well get seats on the permanent boards, he said.

“Groups like the Chambers of Commerce think they should be there too,” Harris added. “Every economic development officer in the region thinks they should be there too.”

“In order to move the money quickly to an entity so they could start to do things, we had to have a structure to do it,” he said. He said groups that are concerned should be patient.

“Take a deep breath,” he said. “We’re building an entirely new culture here that nobody has experienced before.”

“We’ve got a centralized government in Victoria telling people here you decide what you want to do with the money.”
That’s unprecedented, he said.

“This is $135 million going into the north,” he said. “This is a positive event. It’s $135 million more than we’ve ever had before.”

(Story courtesy Terrace Standard)

posted December 16, 2004