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Dehcho First Nations given options in land, resource rights in latest federal land claim offer

The discussion paper includes two different scenarios for chiefs to consider. Three pages of a 14-page discussion paper were posted on Twitter by a former elected leader who attended the negotiation as a member of the public.

Former N.W.T premier Jim Antoine tweets documents tabled during land claim offer in Fort Simpson this week

CBC News ·
Herb Norwegian, pictured here at the Dene leadership meeting in Fort Providence earlier this year, told CBC details of the land offer would not be made public. But former N.W.T. premier Jim Antoine, who attended the negotiation as a member of the public, tweeted some of the documents out. (Kirsten Murphy/CBC )

Some details of the federal and territorial governments' offer to the Dehcho First Nations have been made public.

The discussion paper includes two different scenarios for chiefs to consider. Three pages of a 14-page discussion paper were posted on Twitter by a former elected leader who attended the negotiation as a member of the public

The three documents were posted on Jim Antoine's Twitter account. Antoine is a former premier of the N.W.T., a former chief of Liidlii Kue First Nation, and was involved in the Dehcho negotiation process several years ago.

The documents outline two options. One has a $113-million cash settlement offer, with 48,000 square kilometres of surface and subsurface resource royalty rights, but no resource revenues from Crown land in the Mackenzie Valley.

The other option is the same cash settlement, but with a smaller land offer of 42,000 square kilometres of surface and subsurface rights, and a small share in mineral royalties from development on Crown land in the Mackenzie Valley.

Both offers have alternate scenarios for whether Nahanni Butte Dene Band participates in the settlement. The band broke away from the Dehcho First Nations last year. Both the cash settlement and land offer are smaller if Nahanni Butte does not participate.

Antoine confirmed the documents are authentic, saying he posted them for members of the Dehcho First Nation, but not for media. He declined to comment further to CBC News.  

The documents don't represent anything final yet, and what's public now represents an incomplete picture of the offer.

The Dehcho leadership will still need to look over this document among themselves. Then they'll decide whether to recommend members approve it.

Corrections

  • A previous version of this story incorrectly identified Jim Antoine as a current negotiator for the Dehcho First Nations. In fact, he attended the meeting as a member of the public and is not a negotiator.
    May 05, 2018 2:57 PM CT

With files from Alex Brockman

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