17.0 First Nations’ Community
Values and Perspectives in Impact Assessment - Panel Discussion
First Nations Panel: Brian MacDonald – Champagne Aishihik
First Nation
Pearl Callaghan – Teslin Tlingit First Nation
Clara Van Bibber – Tr’ondek Hwech’in First Nation
Lori Duncan – Ta’an Kwach’an Council
Bill Trerice – Selkirk First Nation
Dan Cresswell – Carcross Tagish First Nation
BRIAN MACDONALD: Good
afternoon, everyone. As has been said,
my name is Brian MacDonald, and it has been suggested to me since I had a bit
of a captive audience -- one of my part-time gigs is I have been volunteering
with the Canada Games Host Society; and if you want to volunteer with the
Games, you can sign up at the front table over here.
I was asked or approached this morning to actually be on this
panel, so pardon me if I get distracted from my notes here, but I didn’t have
much time to prepare this presentation.
I was asked to speak a bit on the experience in working with some
members of the community of Champagne Aishihik on the
process of dealing with -- speaking about the impacts and the compensation process
for them in the Aishihik relicensing. And basically, with that process, I worked
with basically all the individual claimants that come forward dealing with that
relicensing process; and the majority of the members,
we were able to negotiate settlements with the proponent before the actual relicensing hearings commenced. So, most of them we were
able to deal with.
That process itself had a number of different challenges with
it in trying to find ways, in working with them and talking with them, how to
effectively quantify the impacts of the dam in its historical context, but also
in looking forward to the future impacts of the project, on their use of that
area. And quite often, the language was
focused on the use of that area. It
wasn’t necessarily looking as much at the cultural significance or the
connection they had with that area, which was very challenging for most of the
applicants, because they didn’t see that clear distinction, that I guess within
the context of the work I do and the legal context, it’s much easier to see
that.
And so, it’s very challenging having that dialogue with them
and being able to say, “well, now we’ve got to put a
value to this.” And for them, it was
about a way of life; and I’m sure that that type of discussion has occurred
here, but that challenge of how to I guess compartmentalize things in a way
that met the objectives or the needs of basically a legislated regulatory
process with the way in which they thought about how they use that area and
their connection. So, that was very much
a challenge in that process.
We were able to get through it, and most people were able to
find a way of reconciling those differences and were able to come to a
successful settlement for themselves.
The challenge was with those that weren’t able to reconcile that
separation. They weren’t able to come to
some type of clear understanding in their minds of why this different valuation
was occurring and why the certain values that they had weren’t considered to be
priorities within this process, whereas other values that they didn’t consider to be quite as important seemed to take priority in the
process. So, they ended up going into
the hearing process to actually speak before the board, and a number of them
felt very awkward in that process. They
didn’t have to sit or stand in front of 300 people like this, but there was
almost that many there, between the technicians, the proponent, the
interveners, the lawyers, a lot of different people with a lot of different
expertise in a lot of areas, specializing in dealing with board processes and
administrative law processes and technical aspects, too, which for the most
part were considered to be the higher values in assessing that process.
The people coming forth with their applications for
compensation quite often had a different set of values on what they considered
to be important in that process. And
because they weren’t experienced in that process, they weren’t able to, in some
cases, clearly articulate what those concerns were. And so, when it got to the point where they
had to assess the impacts, quite often there was examples of people that
couldn’t remember the last time -- when they were sitting there, being asked
questions, “When was the last time that you used that area?”
“I don’t remember.”
But, after some discussion, you take a bit of a recess, you talk with
them a bit more, you realize that they were just there a couple of weeks
ago. But because of the pressure, their
inability to -- well, not inability, but their lack of experience in that type
of forum, in that type of process, made it very difficult for them to have a
thought process that compartmentalized things the way that that process
expected it and needed it for them to be able to do an assessment on the impacts
to them.
So, quite often, what was important in the process of
understanding what the impacts were wasn’t able to be achieved, because the
people couldn’t communicate effectively in that process on what truly were the
impacts to them, where their values were and why those values were important to
them. So, at the end of the day, most of
them, I think, felt the process didn’t meet their expectations. They didn’t feel that the process addressed
their concerns. And so, the challenge
was, after that they still felt, “Okay, my concerns have been heard but they
haven’t been addressed.”
So, I guess the challenge and I think the process as we move
forward with this, with YESAA is that I think you have a dynamic opportunity
here to be able to create a process that allows those that are truly impacted
by it to be able to express what those impacts are so that when you look at
possible solutions to address these, to mitigate the impacts, to recognize and
compensate those impacts, you don’t necessarily have to look at the simple
approach of saying, “We’ve quantified it into a value, here’s your cheque,
you’ve been compensated for the impacts, and some level of mitigation has
occurred” but be able to look at creative opportunities to allow the applicants
to clearly articulate what those impacts have been to them. It allows you, I think, a much more creative
opportunity to identify ways of mitigating and accommodating their concerns and
the impacts to them that don’t necessarily just focus on money but allow them
to acknowledge the connection to the culture, the connection to the way of life
that, going forward, you don’t have that kind of separation; so that you
haven’t put a value to what their culture is but that you have allowed the
culture to stay at the forefront for them.
Because, I think, in the process that I had, what people had a hard time
reconciling was the connection that the people that came before them had to the
land and where they’re at and where their future generations are going to
be. A cheque to them didn’t acknowledge
the connection that was in the past and doesn’t necessarily provide them the
ability to provide the same lifestyle and the same values that they had to
their future generations.
So, that’s my quick spiel for you. Thank you.
LINDSAY STAPLES:
PEARL CALLAGHAN: Thanks,
Lindsay. I couldn’t even sneak in the
back door here.
Anyways, this morning I was talking with Sis Van Bibber, Clara
Van Bibber there, and she says, “Is the media here?”
And, I say, “Well, I see Mo McFadyen
walking around.”
And she says, “Well, I don’t do media.”
And I says, “Yeah, there will be the Whitehorse
Star here when I go to put my half glasses on, and they will have that on
the front page.” And then, I asked Wanda,
“Please put some tables in front of us so that we can twiddle our thumbs and
quake and shiver.” There we are, sitting ducks.
Anyways, as Lindsay said, my name is Pearl Callaghan. My Tlingit name is Ghanda
Cleg (phonetic), and I’m a member of the Da kh-ka Clan from the Teslin
Tlingit First Nation. And as Brian
mentioned earlier, too, I didn’t want to mention this, and I don’t mean this in
a negative way; but I was only asked a few days ago, too, to be a member on
this panel, and I was really scrambling as to what to say at this
workshop. But anyways, after stressing
and panicking and everything like that, I just had to say to myself, “Calm
down, relax, reflect on who you are and my life experience and what was
instilled in me as a Tlingit person from my Tlingit mother, my white father, my
family, and my extended Tlingit family, and the Tlingit Nation and trust that
what I say is what is needed to say to you as an audience.”
There were three questions, and Lindsay, I guess you said the
three questions. Anyways, I’d just like
to say that historically, the Teslin Tlingits have suffered socially and
culturally from the environmental impacts within our traditional
territory. We’ve had the Goldgush that we’ve gone through. There were impacts made on the
We also know that as a result of the construction of the
Anyways we’re now faced with the possibility of an oil and gas
pipeline being constructed through our traditional territory; and although
there was an environmental assessment done approximately 35 years ago, we
believe that it warrants a new updated environmental assessment that will
comply with the new YESAA legislation.
Also, in the last 10 years or so,
There are also a few studies that were done. There was the Yukon Conservation Society that
was there in 1996 in conjunction with Environment Canada. They hosted a two-day workshop dealing with
environmental issues within the traditional territory and at the community
level. Also, in 1996 there was the First
Nations Environmental Steering Committee that was established and proceeded to
develop four guidelines entitled: First
Nation environmental guidelines on liquid and solid waste disposal; Guidelines
for good environmental practice on drinking water in the Yukon and Northern
B.C. communities; Guidelines for good environmental practice on fuel handling
and storage in the Yukon and Northern B.C. communities and Guidelines for water
data collection for the Yukon and Northern B.C. communities.
Anyways, the second question was: What is the scope of First Nations’ values
and perspectives that need to be incorporated?
Our culture and heritage must be protected from development. We support economic development but only if
it’s sustainable, safeand in harmony with our First
Nation’s values and principles. And when
I dashed off to the office here, a light went on, and I thought of a
declaration and a charter that we passed via a resolution at our general
council meeting last July, and I’d really like to highlight some of the points
from the declaration. The declaration
itself is a little over three pages and it’s really, really, good. It’s very spiritual. But just due to time, I’ll just highlight
it.
Declaration of the Teslin Tlingit:
“We are the Tlingit, people of the land, people of the water,
people of the mountains, the forests and the wolf; people of the rivers, the
lakes, the frog and the beaver; people of the eagle and the raven
children. We walk below the skies of the
creator in the footsteps of our ancestors.
We are one spirit, one mind, one people.
We follow ancient Tlingit law.
Tlingit law is our identity.
Under Tlingit law, each individual is a valued part of the whole
community. Under Tlingit law, each
person has responsibilities to the creator.
Under Tlingit law, each person has responsibilities to the
community. Under Tlingit law, each
person has responsibilities to other individuals. Under Tlingit law, each of our leaders has
responsibilities to the community;” and I’d like to read those
responsibilities:
“To demonstrate responsibility to future generations, to act
at all times in accordance with Tlingit law; to exercise the public trust of
governance to serve the community, not to rule it; to be diligent in public
responsibilities; to give sound counsel and to exercise good judgment; to set
aside personal desires and make decisions in the best interests of the whole
nation; to base decisions in a clear vision; to manage the Nation’s resources
prudently and efficiently; and to evaluate the effect of their actions; to keep
in confidence all matters entrusted to them; to never abuse the public trust by
using information entrusted to them for personal gain or advantage; to conduct
their personal lives without reproach as an honour to our elders, a credit to
the Nation and an inspiration to our youth.”
Together our leaders are responsible to enhance the general
welfare of the Tlingit:
“To promote respect for and use of our language and our
culture; to safeguard our land, resources and environment; to strengthen our
unity and our educational, social, economic and political development; to
protect the spiritual, physical, and emotional health of our people; and to
keep alive Tlingit traditions, preserving our heritage with dignity and pride
for future generations. We are of one
spirit, one mind, and one people. This
is the declaration of the Tlingit, people of the water, people
of the land.”
I think that says it all.
Thank you.
LINDSAY STAPLES: The
next speaker is Lori Duncan; and I kind of mangled her introduction, so, I
apologize, Lori. She’s the Director of
the CYFN Health Commission, and she said that she will take a second shot at
reintroducing herself.
LORI DUNCAN: I
asked them to put this podium up because I could hide behind. So, they did a really good job here. And I want to say that other speakers didn’t
have to sit out there like that. It was
really hard. I’m not used to doing
this. I’m used to being behind a table
and kind of directing a meeting that way.
So, this is new to me.
My name is Lori Duncan, maiden name Lori Laberge. I am a member of the Ta’an Kwach’an
Council. And, my mom was
Irish-Scottish. My father was half
Tlingit-half
So, I mostly want to focus on health; and I’m a bit out of my
realm here, because most of you are not health care workers. There are a few out there that I’ll look
at. And when you think of health, a lot
of people just think of sickness and disease; but to me, health is wellness,
and health encompasses anything social, as well.
So, one of the things that has been driven into me at the
Health and Social Commission, a board that meets under the Council of Yukon
First Nations, is to incorporate that social part of health into there. And it’s been a very difficult challenge, but
it all is encompassed together.
So, I’m really glad that I was invited today to speak to you,
and I’ll talk a little bit about the health and what has happened with First
Nations. So, traditionally health again
is more wellness, and it addresses emotional, spiritual, mental and physical
aspects; and that, to First Nations, is everything. And what you see right now in medical
professions or in the hospital or anything like that is a focus on the
physical, and it’s really hard at any time to try to address the other parts of
health and wellness that we want to see.
The general status of Yukon First Nation health status is much
worse off than the rest of Yukoners, and the same is
Canada-wide. First Nations in
I’ll talk a little bit about Mr. Couchman’s
presentation and when he talked about Fritz Schumacher when he made that
quote. And I wish I had it in front of
me but I don’t. But when he said that,
when you impose change to somebody, then it wrecks their life, basically; and I
said, “You know what, he’s talking about residential
school.” And that’s what’s happened to a
lot of First Nation people. They’ve been
taken right out of their element, right out of everything they know, everything
they breathe; and these children have been placed in another setting that they
don’t know, and they weren’t allowed to speak their language or do anything
traditional at all. And I remember
speaking to my aunt about that.
One of the reasons why I don’t have a lot of traditional
background is because my father wasn’t allowed to speak his language, and my
father wasn’t allowed to do anything Indian, because it was not the way. You had to assimilate, and you had to become
white; and that’s the way it was. And my
aunt and my grandmother and everybody just accepted that that was the way it
was, and little did they know at that time what they were really giving up,
because they had no idea what was in store.
They just thought that this was the new thing; this was the new life,
and this is what we had to do, but they gave up everything they ever had. They had their traditions, their identity,
their language, everything. And those
that have more of it are the ones that are in the smaller communities that were
less impacted by such development and process.
And things like Pearl said: Word
War II, the goldrush, the Alaska Highway, all those
things; people gave up their traditional lifestyles in order to gain a way of
life that is now to gain economic stature or whatever have you. And that was just sort of the way it
was.
And when I was here yesterday with Ed Shultz, who is my boss,
and we looked at the picture that went up there, ”That’s
what we want to see as the
So, when First Nations lost their identity and stuff like
that, they lost ownership. Their land,
everything, belonged to somebody else.
The government owned them, and they had to go into housing that wasn’t
their own. They had to go into a certain
place that wasn’t their own. They gave
up their rights, and this created a tremendous dependency; and with it came a
lot of other things with the dependency like alcohol, drugs and that sort of
thing. And goes the
vicious circle. And what I see
now is a lot of First Nations who are trying to regain their health, regain
their dignity, their language, their culture.
A lot of them have lost it.
So, they’re trying really hard. Through self-government and that sort of
thing, they’re trying to regain a lot of these things.
And even self-government, and I can
attest to so many have struggled, because self-government isn’t recognized for
what it really is. It’s another
government, but it’s been a really difficult challenge for them to be
recognized as a government by other governments.
So, when you talk about YESAA and you talk about the
partnerships, I really am glad to see that there are these equal partnerships,
and I really hope that it’s meaningful; because I come from a background where
the health care system say “partnerships”, and they
don’t mean it. They stamp on the
preamble that they’re going to incorporate culture, they’re going to
incorporate that sort of system of traditions and stuff, but it’s never met. So, I struggle when I go to meetings nationally,
into any setting, to try to say, “Well, you have to really mean this, and you
have to prove it.” So, this is what I
want to see. I know that the process is
working, it’s going really good, and you have a lot of First Nations
partners. The decision makers have to be
at that table.
And another thing I struggle with is at the community level,
so many programs in health are developed for the community; and it’s Health
And your next question is going to be about First Nations, and
my suggestion is, “Involve the First Nations, involve the community and First
Nations, engage them.” And then, there’s
your answer. They develop
ownership. It’s their program in
partnership, and they can take that and it’s a success; and it’s not something
that is taken and imposed on them.
Thanks.
LINDSAY STAPLES: Thanks
Lori. Clara Van Bibber is our next
speaker.
CLARA VAN BIBBER: Thank
you. I was asked last Friday to fill in
for someone. And I was on my way
actually down to
So, I have been asking myself, “What am I doing here?” There are many, many experts out there that
can speak on this issue. Our elders are
our professors, and I don’t know, for some reason I’m here. And my teachings have been, “You’re supposed
to be where you’re at, at the moment;” but, being a human being, I like to
scientifically know why I am here, and I don’t know yet.
So, good afternoon respected elders and our youth, our ladies
and gentlemen. It is my pleasure to be
here with you today, as a matter of fact, all week. I am glad that I did come. I really enjoyed the presentations that were
given all week. It was very
interesting. I would like to thank the organizers
of the workshop, and especially Rob Walker, for allowing me the time on such a
busy agenda that you have to address these important issues. I’ve been asked to speak for five minutes. Obviously, they haven’t sat down with an
elder yet. I like to speak from the
heart, usually, but it’s a little more than five minutes when you do that. So, I do have notes.
I am Clara Van Bibber.
My nickname, which was given to me at birth by my two older brothers, is
“Sis’. So, a lot of people know me -- my
close friends didn’t know my real name for many, many years. I am of the Wolf Clan, born into the Wolf
Clan of the Tr’ondek Hwech’in Nation,
So, as the TH Community Support Coordinator, I am encouraged
that the
Just before I got up here, I was told that if you get nervous,
to yawn. So, if you see me yawning every
five minutes, it’s not because I’m bored or not because I’m tired.
So there have been many good points made in the presentations
of yesterday and today, and I thank the presenters for that. There was talk about some impacts that we
have gone through, and Lori and different ones have mentioned them, and I
really don’t have to go there. But I
would wonder how many know and understand the true effects that we are dealing
with still today in our communities in regards to the impacts that we have gone
through. There are many, many effects
that we deal with in our communities.
Our whole social programmings that I work in
are dealing with the impacts of the residential school, with the
In our community of
Many of our people were trained in this area. They had a training component, and a lot of
them were trained to get jobs in Viceroy.
They had high hopes, because they had 11 years of a very good
high-paying job. And so, they went out,
and a lot of them did borrow monies for different things, like trucks and
whatever, buying homes and that. But lo
and behold, they were only there for five years and they left. They’re gone!
So, we are still today working with our people in regards to some of
those effects. We had to scramble around
to help them out and to de-roll them out of that.
And the other thing is the reclamation. You know, I’m really glad that people are
having to do reclamation today in areas that they dig up and that. And it was really nice that they tried to put
things back together. They did planting
of grass. I’m not sure if they did the
trees and that. But am I ever going to
go back up in that area and pick the berries that I used to pick and pick the
plant life that I used to for medicines, to go up and see the animals that I
once did see. There were some of our people
who trapped in that area. Are they ever
going to be able to trap there again?
Those are things that we are left with today.
Again, with the residential school, a lot of things were left
behind: the loss of language, culture,
health and social aspects, the different traumas.
We have heritage programs in our communities. We’re trying to again reclaim our
language. Our language is our
lifestyle. It’s our culture. It’s our whole being. Everything in our language is how we lived at
one time. We’re trying to do research,
and we have an excellent heritage department at Tr'ondek Hwech'in. The fact is we don’t have the capacity,
though. We don’t have the dollars to
document a lot of that stuff; and those are things that can be used in any
assessment that you do today. So, we
need help in that area.
We’ll also need not only dollars, but we will need the
assistance to ensure that this happens through the offices that you will be
setting up in the communities, the YESAA offices. So, we’ll need your help, also.
The heritage values of an area also have to be assessed when
looking at large-scale projects. What
effects will digging in a gravel pit, used as a source of construction and
material for the proposed bridge that’s going to be built in the Dawson area,
what effects will that have on the hunting patterns of the First Nations people
and the migration patterns of the moose, which is one of the largest First
Nation heritage resources is the moose and other game and plant life. I say “heritage resource” in the sense that
we engage our traditions through our hunting, fishing and gathering. The moose, then, are a vital element in the
practising of our traditions.
So, if large development projects disrupt the resources, where
will the moose, et cetera, go? Are they
forced to move on to quieter habitat, and what effect will that have on local
First Nations’ traditions and cultures?
It’s just a scenario. I'm not
sure if the moose will move or if they’ll stick around or what. We need to talk to them, I guess.
We do support development.
We do support the oil and gas, also; but that doesn’t mean to say that
we’re not going to take up the torch with our sisters and brothers of the
Vuntut Gwitchin area and up that way in the fight of the ANWR area for the
caribou, to keep the caribou there, the migration of them.
With that in mind, it is imperative on all of us to remember,
when planning projects in the name of “progress”, that we keep a critical eye
on the potential effects on First Nations in particular and our communities in
general. Let me be clear on one thing,
before you start to think that I’m here to discourage development, I'm
not. Development is a good thing,
something we at Tr'ondek Hwech'in support.
What we as stewards, though, of the Yukon have to figure out, however,
is how we can move ourselves forward with the least amount of impact on the
environment, the people and the communities that we serve.
I think I’m done, yes.
So, I would like to once again thank the coordinators and the MC for
allowing me to be here; and I thank you for listening.
LINDSAY STAPLES: Thanks,
Clara, I didn’t see you yawning, though.
Our next speaker is Bill Trerice.
In my view, YESAA is a real opportunity to do something that
is very unique in the
Of course, public consultation, everybody has talked loud
about public consultation and the importance of that, and I agree. Devolution, it’s an opportunity to develop
some of the process powers and whatnot at a community level, six communities in
the
So, from that, I would like to bounce to a different
topic. This is what I’ve thought about
in the past, and I don't really claim to be an expert in this area, but I’ve
thought a lot about traditional economies in the past. We had a workshop four years ago back in
DIAND. There are probably a few people
maybe remember that; and I realized that traditional economies were important
about 10 years ago when I was working in
At one time, 200 years ago plus before the epidemics came
through, the
So, aboriginal people have lived in the
So, I think how this was achieved was by people living in
small groups and how they would go from harvest opportunity-to-harvest
opportunity throughout the year; but in a sense, they would always come back to
a cycle. They would always go back to
the same place eventually. Maybe it was
every year, maybe it was every few years.
I think this allowed them to have a really good understanding of a
place; and as people developed knowledge through the generations, they were in
the same place. So, they could go back
to the same lake, and they could either tell stories about the resources in
that lake or maybe it was related to how a lake would be dangerous in a
sense. So, there would be stories about
people drowning or monsters in the lake or these types of things; but within
all these stories and whatnot, there was bits of information, information that
was really important for people’s survival, because before you had writing, you
really had to have a way of condensing information and putting it in packages
which people could remember and retrieve and it was something they were really
going to live by, as well. It wasn’t
just something that they knew about but they weren’t going to do if it -- all
these stories were seen as probably real maybe in many respects, but I don't
really claim to know a lot about that cultural aspect of it.
Traditional economies provided people an opportunity to engage
with the environment through their harvesting largely, but also through
prescribed burning; and I also heard that people would clear creeks and make
sure that fish could get through, migration corridors and whatnot. Harvesting, like if you can imagine that if
you had people who were fishing out of a certain lake for thousands of years,
and then, suddenly today, for example, which is in the blink of an eye from the
time things changed, considering how long they existed, in that short period of
time, we have really stopped harvesting the land in many respects. We harvest on these transportation corridors
now and rivers and stuff like this. So,
we’ve really lost something that existed once, which I think is going to be
really important to redevelop in the future, and that is use of the whole land;
because when you use the whole land, you know about the whole land. When you know about the whole land and people
live there and they live that, it provides, like Bob was saying earlier, the
inter-generational opportunities to learn from the past generations, right, so
very important.
Of course, that relates to traditional knowledge; and today
when people talk about traditional
knowledge, I think that we’ve really got to put the traditional knowledge
within the traditional economy’s context; because traditional knowledge is not
as strong and it probably won’t last as long as if you don’t have people who
live on the land. This doesn’t mean that
we have to go back to the way of living that was like it was then, but I think
we have to realize there were key things that were really important when it
comes to using the land, you know, distribution of population, using all the
different resources of the land, understanding larger cycles that take place in
the environment. These are the types of
things that we have to recompress into some type of new development model that
is going to allow us to use the
As you know, today we have a lot of problem with people
under-employed, homelessness, substance abuse, these types of things. I always thought the most sensible thing to
do is to help people get back to the land, because the land ultimately I think
is the main vehicle to healing people and to developing health and providing
people on the land to harvest resources also so we can get those resources back
into the communities, both medicines and foods.
This is another way of getting people to benefit.
So, the last aspect of traditional economies maybe is how it
relates to environmental stewardship.
Today we have -- you know, worldwide, we’ve all come too far from the
environment. We live in communities now,
and we have economies which import all the resources we need, along with money,
lots of money; and this is just not -- it can’t be sustainable in the long term. It is very much an artificial reality we’ve
created, and it’s not going to accomplish what we need to do in the
future. We have real issues emerging in
the future here in the
From that, I would just like to go to the concept of regional
systems and how we need to break up the government into -- not break up the
government. You see, the
So, there is an initiative going on right now on a global
level. It’s called “Earth Observations”,
and what they are trying to do is do this on a worldwide level; and they’re
trying to integrate all the existing systems on a worldwide level into one
integrated unit that could be used to study the entire environment worldwide
and through that allowing people to better understand the relationships between,
you know, earth and natural systems, hydrology, energy from the sun and
whatnot, the biosphere.
I think we need to realize this is going on at the global
level, and we have to develop something similar on the regional level. So, a modelling system that is a way to
organize all the information data that exists out there, scattered all around;
and it’s a way to identify the research gaps that exist. As we all know, there are many gaps in
environmental research taking place.
So, it’s not just the
My final theme is I’m just trying to stress the importance of
looking at the Yukon as one region, a regional unit, and stress the importance
of how data and information are really the foundations -- should be the
foundations of a lot of our modern ideas about government and governance in the
Yukon.
Thanks.
LINDSAY STAPLES: Thanks,
Bill, you’ve given us a lot to think about.
Dan Cresswell.
DAN CRESSWELL: Good
afternoon, everybody. I guess when I was
going to college here, they told me I should just write down a few notes; and
maybe I should have done that, because I’ve got so much going through my head
right now, it’s just not funny.
These last two days, and then, last week, I was in a YESAA
caucus on Friday. Then Wednesday and
Thursday, I was at a decision body workshop for -- like, the governments are
going to be decision bodies for YESAA, looking at some of the scenarios. When we look at First Nations values, to
start understanding the values that we need to put into this, we have to look
at where we’ve come from, and we also need to look at the trust that is needed
to bring these values forward; because a lot of the trust that we placed in
other governments in the past, we’ve kind of been let down. You know, we talk about traditional
economies, and it’s good to have that moose or sheep in the freezer; but a lot
of my people don’t have a moose or a sheep in the freezer this year, and it’s
for a number of different reasons. Some
of them don't know how to go out and do it, because they’ve lost it because of
the impacts that we’ve had with our people; but also, when we look at the
Carcross Tagish area, the moose are under quota, the sheep are under
quota. There is no caribou hunting. Goats are under quota. Fish are being impacted. Our salmon fishery is pretty much nil; and if you talk to the old people about what was in
this country before, it’s just amazing. It’s like night and day.
So, not only are our people and our land and our wildlife all
recovering, then we’re looking at this, and we’re saying, “Well, let’s get a
system in place so we can get ready for some more impacts, but we’re going to
have a little more say on how it’s going to happen.” A little impact to the moose right now could
be devastating. For the caribou, we’re
talking about “death by 1,000 cuts.”
When do you stop, at 999 or at 500 or at 600, because the caribou, some
time we’re going to have to sit down with a vision of what we want in this area
and say, “Okay, if caribou are going to be here, some day we’re going to have
to sit down and say, ‘Okay, this is the very last rural residential application
that’s going to be accepted. This is the
very last agricultural application that’s going to be accepted’.”
And I remember we were in a Forestry meeting, and we looked at
all the stuff that was going on with Forestry; and I kept saying, you know, “It’s
the people in the community.” The
community has got to be able to have the diversity within this legislation to
look at what they want for their community.
If they want a community forest, a big industry can’t come in and say,
“Okay, we’re going to set up a pulp mill, and we’re going to get at her.”
“No, no, no,” we may have our own plan, our own vision of what
needs to be done; and I think the
And I think when we start looking at this, the designated
offices and governments have to sit down and say, “This is our vision for this
area. If somebody wants to come in and
do something, they’re going to have to sit down, and we’re going to have to
talk about it.” It’s going to take an
awful lot of communication. It’s going
to take a lot of trust. You know, we
talk about government-to-government relationships. I know some of the First Nations have been
signed off for going on 12 years, and they say that’s one of the biggest
problems is consultation and where is the government-to-government
relationship? If those things are still
working and still growing, and we’re still evolving with that and we’re looking
at some major developments coming in, we’re going to need an awful lot of
trust; but we have to do this together.
We talk about sustainability. Can
the
When we were answering all these different coloured papers at
our table, a lot of it came back to the same thing. It was communication and some visioning and
community involvement. As long as we’ve
got everybody involved, even if we make a mistake, at least if we’re all doing
it together, we can get out of it together hopefully, you know. We don't want to go too far down that path,
but it’s happened in the past. Can you
imagine doing a YESAA on the goldrush! They came through Carcross. You know, there used to be thousands of
caribou going by there, and now there are thousands of tourists. I don't get to eat caribou meat, and I don't
even collect a dollar from those guys going by.
We’ve got to slow them down and get some of the money going by, heading
up to
A lot of stuff is going through my mind, but I’ve got to
mumble around here for five minutes just to figure out what I’m actually going
to get talking about.
I think that’s pretty much what I have to say, you know. It’s going to take the community of the
We still haven’t signed a land claim agreement yet. I guess by the end of next week, we will know
if we will have another vote again.
That’s kind of a scary topic, too, going there, not having
self-governing powers and relying on other governments to consult with us. All the mess that we’re in right now, that’s
how we got there with our wildlife, with our people. So, if we do go down that road, when I look
at the capacity of the First Nation in Carcross without having self- governing
powers, without having the injection of money that the other First Nations have
had for anywhere from a year to 12 years, just the capacity for us to be able
to respond to any of the big developments that may happen -- well, it’s not
“may”. They will happen in Carcross
area. I don’t think 37 days is going to
be able to cut it unfortunately. You
know, we’ve seen a lot of stuff going on in Carcross. In the last several years there’s been a 4
million dollar injection, but it’s mainly just for cleanups, cleaning up the
old mine sites, cleaning up the water, cleaning up the waterfront. We’ve seen an awful lot of cleanup,
we’ve seen a lot of mistakes. We know
what we don’t want. So, I think, we all
have to sit down and decide what we do want and get moving forward. Thanks.