Community consultation lacking

Page 7

Dear Editor:

I am of the First Nation Dogrib Rae Band of which you have referred to in your article ('Certainty' model causes concern, October 2002). I read with great interest with what you had to say about the agreement. You say:

"We're expecting that the big brains in Indian Country will soon be wrestling with the question of whether the certainty model employed in the Northwest Territories in the Tlicho (Dogrib) self-government agreement is really extinguishment in disguise. A rose by any other name still smells, wrote Shakespeare, and many surrounding this agreement already think that is the case here.

We're not going to close our minds to any of the possibilities, but we, like you, feel the need to ask the questions and examine the answers. We expect the Tlicho people will be doing the same thing during their agreement consultation period over the next couple of months."

Well, let me update you on what the Tlicho Treaty 11 Council, who are the negotiators for the Tlicho/Dogrib agreement, have been doing. They are shoving this whole thing down our throat without educating the people adequately and consulting on a more personal basis and I have heard this from other Dogrib people.

Many of our young people who are educated are asking questions, but we are being ignored by the grand chief and his negotiators. They say that anything in the agreement can be amended once the agreement is ratified, but we are worried that may not be true. The leaders choose to ignore our queries and questions and they continue to push the agreement through. To date I have only learned that the negotiators are doing only a short, one-day visit to communities, which are only accessible by planes, as an agreement consultation.

More time is needed to go through the agreement thoroughly, but like I say, they are shoving this down our throats before proper long-term intensive community involvement, consultation and in-depth input from the whole community of the Dogrib people. They may even be doing the ratification this way, but who knows what they are up to?

We have a lot of questions, but get no assurance from the leaders and they are going to be our future government? This is a very scary thought. We need to get more information and more accountability from the leaders before the agreement is ratified. We need to let the public know that the Treaty 11 council must deal with their Band members in a fair and democratic way, otherwise we need help to protest this agreement from going through.

Lena Bekale