Friends, one constant in the North are the meetings and workshops always in progress.
Here in Radilih Koe, Fort Good Hope, it is no different.
This time the talk is about self-government.
One major concern has to do with housing and especially how government tends to raise prices on home-owners.
A good part of the presentation made by lawyer/negotiator Daniel T’seleie for our side of it has to do with all of the GNWT regulations already seemingly in place, even before the People have had their say.
Hearing it all on the radio I simply had to drop what I was doing to go and attend the K’ahsho Got’ine main table session itself.
All of these kinds of talk appear well and good on paper, but what we think of as something new, self-government especially, is actually the very tail end of a long and ongoing process.
After an elder spoke up about how none of the young people could respond to him in Dene, long-time leader Frank T’seleie put in the way he understood it.
The loss of our Indigenous languages is not happening by accident, he said, nor simply as a result of modern life.
The process, like many others, was a part of a parliamentary order, set for forth way back about 1867, to begin the residential schools.
The end of native languages was very much an intentional component, so we children would lose both language and culture.
In the late '60s, our treaty rights to health and education were also taken away – or at least seriously eroded in the devolution – from the federal government to the newly-formed GNWT. These were two of the main issues our chiefs signed onto Treaties 8 and 11 to guarantee.
As for the Mackenzie Highway idea, there is now $140 million to be spent on it and slated to begin in 2021.
Both of these, self-government and the highway to link the rest of Canada to the Beaufort Sea, are in a very real way all about access, yes, but even more about money.
Curiously the GNWT wants it both ways, for big oil and to find ways to deal with climate change.
One thing a long-time leader pointed out to me is that when we go back to just after the Berger Inquiry, in the late '70s, no one was interested in self-government until big money was mentioned. Then all kinds of leaders jumped on board.
Either way, these are in part just the way history happens.
One good thing coming out of these talks, though, is that our present younger leaders are taking up where our chiefs of the past left off, with the fate of future generations in their hands.
But, we must also be aware that both issues – highways and self-government – are basically another step in the colonizing process, turning our people into just other Canadians, who have to pay up and without treaty rights.
Mahsi, thank you very much.