Get it in the AIP

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Pacheedaht/Ditidaht and Snuneymuxw, the only Vancouver Island First Nations to receive formal treaty offers, continue to negotiate towards agreements-in-principle despite Sechelt's recent withdrawal from the process and decision to go to court. Sechelt's choice gives Ditidaht and Pacheedaht, which swiftly rejected a treaty offer last October, hope that new life will be breathed into the treaty process, said Jim Christakos, Ditidaht/Pacheedaht technical negotiator.

Sechelt sent a "very, very powerful signal to government things have got to change. That should give hope to everybody that things will change. I don't believe the government can permit things to degenerate to the point where everybody goes to court," he said.

"If you get 50 Sechelts, the economy of this province is ground to a halt. If you get four Sechelts, the economy of this province goes to hell, because everybody else will, at this point, turn to direct action. There is enough unity now among First Nations that it would take very little organization to orchestrate massive province-wide disruptions. That's what lies ahead for the government if things don't change," Christakos said.

"God help Canada and British Columbia if all First Nations are going to do that. Think of what that would do to the economy of this province. Sacrifice and poverty and these kind of problems are familiar territory to First Nations' people, but the rest of the population would be joining them if this kind of thing happen. So, it can't, and for that reason I'm optimistic governments will, in fact, respond in a manner that will enable viable, workable, rational treaties to be negotiated," said Christakos.

Snuneymuxw senior negotiator Michael Rodger said, based on what they heard coming out of Sechelt, he's concerned.

"We're hopeful we'll be able to get through this logjam, but the proof will definitely be in the pudding. If we're able to make agreements, that will be based on the efforts of an awful lot of people who are involved in this process. I believe it will be contingent on government's willingness to be a little more creative in how we're dealing with some of these substantive issues at the table."

Unprecedented unity among First Nations and instantaneous communications has given Pacheedaht and Ditidaht clout, said Christakos.

"We say 'when we talk to you now about these fundamental requirements of the treaty - certainty, lands and resources, Aboriginal rights - you're talking to every First Nation in the province, because the minute we walk out of this room, we go onto our computers and fan it out.' We have a network that goes to work right away. We tell our neighbors what happened, what the governments have said about various things, and they tell us, and the governments know that. The days of playing off the Indians and divide and conquer are finished. That's why we have confidence that maybe now the governments have come to that realization that their strategy doesn't work, that we'll now get viable, honorable negotiations and that's why we're in it."

He said either people are committed to the notion of diplomacy and negotiations or they abandon it.

"If you abandon that, you then go to direct action, confrontation and law. We think the investment that's been made in diplomatic process of treaty negotiation - and I think this represents the view of (Ditidaht Chief) Jack Thompson and (Pacheedaht Chief) Marvin McClurg - is too great to throw out the window yet," said Christakos.

Pacheedaht and Ditidaht could reach an agreement-in-principle by year-end if government policies change, he said.

"We're still optimistic." The ground rules for federal and provincial government negotiators are changing daily, he said. "Some things they refused to talk about, even as recently as six months ago, like resource sharing, are now on the table." Compensation for lost resources, another sticking point, is also on the table.

Some headway has been made, but goverment negotiators are "in the swimming pool with their hands tied" with mandates that don't work.

He said the cookie cutter approach to negotiations has to be abandoned.

Nanaimo-based Snuneymuxw continues to negotiate. It, like Pacheedaht and Ditidaht, is one of the lead tables and is concerned about the limited mandate given to government negotiators, said Rodger.

Members are concerned about the amount of time and money invested in negotiations.

"It's been a slow, expensive process for them and they haven't seen substantive results yet," Rodger said. "They're anxious for results. They are committed to negotiations. Their hopes and dreams are attached to this," he said. "I'm a negotiator so I have to remain optimistic we'll be able to resolve these roadblocks over the next several months. I owe it to the community to make the best of these negotiations that I can." Rodger continues to hope an agreement-in-principle can be reached by year-end, but concedes that would be a tough schedule to meet and means overcoming major obstacles like the issues of certainty and revenue-sharing.

The lesson to be learned from Sechelt is to "get everything you want in the treaty in the AIP," said Rodger. "We'll want to make sure the agreement-in-principle represents everything the Snuneymuxw people want in a treaty. We're not willing to take that kind of chance that we'll be able to come back to it in stage 5 (final agreement) of negotiations. And, in fact, that is the message we received from (Sechelt) Chief Gary Feschuck, that if we want it in the treaty, make sure it's in the AIP."

Reaching a treaty in an urban environment, where much of the land has already been privatized, complicates Snuneymuxw negotiations, making it more costly than trying to reach a treaty in a remote area, he said. Members have made it clear they want a land-based treaty.

"They don't want to substitute cash for land. They want a fair land treaty and don't believe they should be penalized because theirterritory has been urbanized."

Rodger said he was encouraged by recent comments made by provincial Finance Minister Paul Ramsey, one of three members of a high-powered cabinet committee set up by Premier Ujjal Dosanjh to try to find ways to break the treaty deadlock. Ramsey said the committee will recommend increasing the amount of money that negotiators can offer its First Nations, which may lead to "refreshed offers" in existing negotiations, he said.

The Pacheedaht and Ditidaht chiefs, while having mandates from their people to negotiate a treaty, also have a mandate to pull the plug and walk away if they can't get one that achieves community objectives, said Christakos. Heartbreak and disillusionment have been part of the process. Last October when a land and cash offer was made to the nations, McClurg didn't hide his bitter disappointment.

"With the benefit of hindsight, we should have gone directly to the courts to protect and assert our rights and interests," he said.

"In our analysis, in a worst-case scenario, if the treaty was accepted by Ditidaht and Pacheedaht, the government would have recovered all of its investments in the treaty in under 10 years through taxation and other means. Others have done huge arithmetic on that sort of thing. The Westbank people hired an actuarial firm to do an analysis and, in their view, the governments would make a fortune on the treaty in no time (if they were made a similar offer)," said Christakos.

The Pacheedaht and Ditidaht offers, like others made and rejected about the same time, were based on the Nisga'a agreement and the costs to be borne by Canada and B.C., said Christakos. "They have simply made a per capita offer to every First Nation that is identical to the per capita offer to Nisga'a." The two nations, which have spent about $2.5 million on their treaty negotiations, analyzed the October offer for several months, with the help of consultants, and concluded they would be "considerably worse off" than th status quo.

The five formal offers made to date to nations in the treaty process and rejected were also analyzed by Deloitte and Touche on behalf of the First Nations Summit and it's clear the offers weren't related to negotiations at any of the tables, he said. "They basically disregarded years of negotiations that dealt with all these other issues and simply reduced it to land and cash based on Nisga'a. That's why you've had these allegations of bad faith (negotiations). Every First Nation now alleges bad faith or has alleged it at one time or another."

"The public cannot relate to social issues, to cultural issues. What the public relates to is land and cash." Hearing the treaty offers made to First Nations, uninformed members of the public with a vested interest tend to respond with outrage, feeling the country is being given away along with tax dollars, he said. "The flaunting of land and cash by the government is tactical."

Government negotiators "have created a political environment that backlashes against First Nations' people and, in effect, put politicians in the position of saying to First Nations' people, 'The public won't tolerate any more,'" said Christakos, calling the strategy "underhanded."