Eligibility battle looms over treaty negotiations

Page 3 Graham Allen, treaty negotiator for the Sechelt Indian Band in British Columbia, accused provincial negotiators of apartheid politics during side table talks on treaty eligibility criteria and land issues.

"Sechelt is not South Africa," he said, after provincial negotiator, Gina Delimari, dropped a bomb shell, April 10, Delimari announced the provincial policy in province-wide treaty negotiations would not include compensation to non-Aboriginals who have gained their native status through marriage. Allen said he could not believe the province was going to classify Indigenous people according to their racial origins.

"For the province to suggest we have two categories of band members is something we'll never accept. We cannot get involved in these kinds of divisive issues. We are not pre-Mandelian South Africa. This is ugly, ill considered, and monstrous," said Allen. Allen said the decision would have a huge impact on Sechelt and Squamish negotiations. "We didn't expect this," said Sechelt chief Garry Feschuk.

"All band members are entitled to vote, and now the province is saying they are going to determine who has eligibility rights to receive benefits under the treaty? We can't pick and choose our people and say you don't have the right to entitlement. We are one band..all this is going to create controversy within the band."

Feschuk said the policy would be not accepted by the band, who attained self-government in 1985, and has eligibility criteria established in their constitution. "We are not going to divide our people. We aren't going to pick and choose who is eligible and who is not."

Federal negotiator Bill Wray said the federal government recognizes the Sechelt's creiteria for band membership for treaty negotiations and compensation purposes. Wray said that when the federal government recognized the Sechelt's right to self-government in 1986, it accepted the definitions of band membership as set out in the Sechelt constitution.

He wouldn't comment on the provincial decision. Although provincial negotiators have denied there is a per capita compensation formula, both Feschuk and Allen felt per capita settlement funding must be behind the move to classify the Sechelts along racial origin lines. "If there isn't a per capita funding formula, what difference does the ancestry of a band member make," said Feschuk.

"Treaties are with Aboriginal people. The benfits of those treaties are for Aboriginal people... We want to negotiate with people of Sechelt ancestry. We're not talking about band membership lists," Delimare argued. Delimari said the province would consider non-Aboriginal children, who have been adopted by band members as eligible for treaty compensaion.

Elder Gilbert Joe claimed the policy would create " a legal nightmare", and that the Sechelt would oppose it. Lee Dixon, the band Indian registry adminstrator, said that as of March there were 926 registered Sechelt band members.

No one since 1986 has received band membership through marriage. Estimates of the number of Sechelt members potentially affected by the proposal were not available. Negotiations also failed on land issues with the province again refusing to provide interim protection status for lands claimed by the Sechelt.

Frustration and acrimony marked the discussions. The source of friction between negotiators includes nine lots of traditional lands outlined in the February, 1995 Sechelt land claims proposal, and a request by the Sechelt nation for interim protection measures to ensure the availability of those lands for a treaty settlement. "The province is saying they won't protect areas where there are pre-existing active tenures, leases, and licenses, but they also want to protect 'proposed' future interests.

We're opposed to that", Feschuk said. Delimari said the province assesses lands for negotiations based on several criteria including the value of the land, how it's used, current and proposed interest, and how the land will be trated in federal cost sharing agreements. Allen said the Sechelt have made it clear that they will respect all existing leases, and tenures, but they will not recognize the terms of leases and licenses applied for after the Sechelts made public their intentions for those lands. Delimari offered to make alternate lands available to the Sechelt if existing tenures and licenses became negotiating stumbling blocks. But her suggestion was met with frustration.

"We're back to where we were 200 years ago," said Feschuk. "What you're taking from our land claim in proposed and active interest leaves us with nothing. Now you're dictating what lands we can have. Theses aren't up for negotiation. If we go back and make another selection, then the proposed interests will come in. What you give us is barren land. It's already been logged off." Sechelt Elder women in the audience applauded Faschuk's remarks.

Negotiators moved the eligibility question forward to the next main table session in Sechelt to be held May 14. Land issues will be discussed again at a side table slated for April 25. The Sechelt claim is in stage four, the agreement in principle stage, of the six stage B.C. Treaty Commission process.