When Premier Bob McLeod issued his “red alert” last fall, news of his bold statement travelled across the territory and the nation.
The alert was directed at what McLeod rightly perceives as federal interference in the territory's aspirations for greater economic autonomy. His case in point was Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's unilateral decision to call a moratorium on oil and gas exploration in the Arctic.
Alas, his red alert and claims toward the “re-emergence of colonialism” in Ottawa did not sit well with some Indigenous groups in the territory, and for good reason.
In the Deh Cho, the bush chickens have come home to roost in Nahanni Butte, which finds itself at loggerheads with a heavy-handed cease-and-desist order by the territorial government, initiated after the Nahanni Butte Dene Band began clearing an 80-km path along a proposed all-season mining road near the community.
The band is calling the path a trapline. It does not seem at all coincidental that it is following the all-season road route proposed by Canadian Zinc to its Prairie Creek mine. But so what? As explained by Nahanni Butte Chief Peter Marcellais in November, the road is an important project for the band. Its construction will mean greater potential for tourism and industry possibilities – both of which would mean jobs and money for the band.
The path clearing project has another benefit too. It means getting youth off the couch and away from their smart phones and doing something constructive and beneficial for the community.
None of these laudatory goals has stopped the GNWT bureaucrats from breaking out their measuring tapes and demanding a land-use permit. A thinly veiled threat of legal action warns the band it is in violation of territorial land use regulations if it builds a path wider than 1.5 meters without a permit. The latest statement from the GNWT comes after the government sought an injunction last year to stop the band from clearing a “logging road” from which the trapline springs. The government ultimately backed away after accusing the band of trying to do an end-run on the government's environmental process for the Prairie Creek mine.
It shouldn't have to be pointed out but this is where it must be noted in bold that, for all intents and purposes, the land on which this path is being built belongs to the Nahanni Butte Dene Band. They are the primary users and always have been.
The people most effected by the trapline, the logging road and all-season road to the mine is them.
It almost seems as if the GNWT, by thwarting the band's desire for self-determination and greater economic autonomy, is practising in a little bit of, what's the word, “colonialism”?
Band manager Mark Pocklinton didn't hesitate to go there.
“Like our chief said, this is like colonialism all over again,” said Pocklington.
Instead of spending more taxpayers money chasing First Nations groups into court and losing, as it typically always does when confronting Indigenous groups over land and wildlife issues, the GNWT would be wise to work on compromises that ensure reasonable environmental protections while ensuring the aspirations of these communities are fulfilled.
The only alternative at this point is hypocrisy. And no one needs a red alert to see that.