The territorial election has come and gone, but prior to election day in Dehcho and Nahendeh, the Dehcho First Nations held all-candidates forums to help voters get a better sense of what the candidates were advocating.
Dehcho First Nations (DFN) Grand Chief Herb Norwegian shared his thoughts after the Nov. 1 and 2 forums.
“I thought some of them were there as far as responding to the question, some of them, I thought, didn’t come close enough. We wanted to hear something solid, you know, something saying, ‘Yes! I am going to donate my full time in the Dehcho on getting this whole (self-government process) resolved.That is the first issue that is on my agenda and that is what I want to get done, if we’re going to resolve all the homelessness and the big-ticket items in this riding. One of the things is to get certainty, to get certainty right away.
“If the territorial government could start moving and start dealing with us on trying to resolve a lot of the big issues that we’ve put to them at the table then we could move on, but for some reason or another these little things are being dropped on the table and for no reason at all. They have no reason to put these roadblocks up as we’re moving along, and so, that was what we were having problems with.
“So what we wanted to do was to see if we can actually put the candidates online, and have them be very clear with us where they wanted to go with us here, and so I kind of thought that some of them were able to do it,” said Norwegian.
“In Fort Providence — there were four of them that ran there — I thought all four of them were really good. And all four are members, they all belong to Dehcho First Nations, and they are really good.
“Here in the Dehcho, we had a mixture of people, and all in all, they were under the watchful eye of the entire forum. They knew that they were being watched and they had to be very careful on how they talked. But I think we did put them on notice. You know, they were told, ‘This is the big issues,’ and come election day we hope that we’ll hear something a little stronger from them.”
When asked what he’d like to see, ideally, from the successful candidate, Norwegian replied, “I’d like someone to be able to be right up front and say that, ‘Yes, the Dehcho Process is the number one ticket item that we need to resolve,’ and if the candidates know that there is a lot of uncertainty here, in both ridings — in Nahendeh and in Dehcho — it’s the result of no final claim. A lot the other regions have final agreements.
“We’ve got some great ideas, some good ways on how we can move forward. One of them is that there is no need for the Dehcho to extinguish or release land to governments, those days are long gone. You know, the whole process of divvying up lands or selecting lands, it’s clear that our membership are saying that they don’t want to go down that road. But I think the other option — and this is one of the designs and one of the creative things that we were able to come forward with — is to start talking about shared stewardship, where you’re actually talking about shared authority or share management, rather than talking about, ‘This is yours,’ and ‘This is mine.’
“Because, in fact, where a lot of that ‘shared’ idea exists, and where it started back in the old days, was that if you look at the treaties carefully and all the ways the Elders were talking, they were talking about ‘sharing,’ about sharing responsibilities,” Norwegian added.
“So, that’s where we’re coming from and we hope that the territorial government and Canada understands that at this day and age, in this mood of reconciliation, we need to take back what rightfully belongs to us, right from the beginning. And so, we can go down that road, carve out a trail, and once we get to the top of that pyramid, then I think we’re there. And we just need to find where that shining light is, and just claw our way to the top. And I think we’re on the right track.”