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, Pearl.

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 Teslin Lake, specifically a slaughterhouse at the south end of the Teslin Lake. There was also the construction of the Alaska Highway by the American Army. They also constructed the Canol Road and the Nisutlin Bridge; and although these major projects may have benefited our people economically through the creation of a few jobs and those jobs were mainly as scouts or backpackers, the social impact was still there and it still is, and it could be more or less, depending on the times, too. But we’ve been impacted through disease, alcoholism, loss of our culture, language for myself, our traditions and loss of our Tlingit identity to a degree; and we’re working really hard on getting this back.

We also know that as a result of the construction of the Alaska Highway and the Canol Road, we also now suffer from possible PCBs that are in our drinking water and also the disposal of a lot of these 45-gallon drums that held who- knows-what. There are old army airplanes, there’s old equipment et cetera in the Nisutlin Bay, in the Teslin Lake, and Quiet Lake, just to name a few of the lakes, never mind the rivers and streams. Plus there is a lot of equipment, fuel drums et cetera that were buried on the land or they were left to sit on the land, and they were left there to rust. You know, they affect the aesthetics of the land.

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, TTC has had no real experience with environmental assessments, other than notification by other governments that an environmental assessment will be occurring in the traditional territory, at which time an employee may or may not have attended. And generally speaking, we haven’t had a lot of recent development requiring environmental assessments in our traditional territory, other than small forestry operations.

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 Southern Tuchone. I wasn’t raised in a traditional setting, and I strive to try to regain that and I’ll talk a little bit about that. I work at the Council of Yukon First Nations as the manager of Health and Socials Development there; and I’ve worked there for two-and-a-little-bit years. Before that, I have a strong background in health; and I worked over 20 years at the hospital in acute care, mostly on the children’s ward. That means that I started when I was 9 years old.

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 Canada, their health status is much, much lower or worse than the rest of Canada. And people ask, you know, “Why is that?” And there are a lot of reasons.

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 Yukon,” he said to me. He said, “They forgot the people.” And that’s what we really have to think about is those people. And I thought to myself, “And the wildlife”, you know. There’s that part, portion as well.” You can just have the land there, but if you don’t think of the people and what may affect them health-wise, what do you do?

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 Canada or wherever who develop the program up here that say, “Okay, I’m going to fix you. And I’m going to do this. And I’m going to do this. What’s it going to take for me to do this? And then, I’m going to come and bulldoze through your community and do whatever I want anyways.” But they’re not consulted. I don’t like that word “consulted”. They’re not involved in the decision-making. There is something that needs to be changed there, because who knows their community best but the community itself; and I can’t stress that enough. We were sitting at our table, and the answer to everything that you have there is, ‘”Involve the community, engage the community, ask the community.”

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 Whitehorse here to pick my grandson up. So, I didn’t know any details. I didn’t know what I was in for. So, I’ve been dreading this moment all weekend and all this week, and here it is!

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, Dawson City. And my mother is from the Tr’ondek Hwech’in, and my father is from the Selkirk First Nations. So, I was born into a very, very large family on both sides of my parents. I wear many hats. I’m a mother of four and a grandmother of four, and I’m an auntie and a sister. I’m also the Community Support Coordinator, as well as the Deputy Chief. So, I guess that’s why I get pulled here and there once in a while. I cover a lot of area.

So, as the TH Community Support Coordinator, I am encouraged that the Yukon is beginning to discuss ways to measure the socio-economic impacts of development in the Territory.

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 Alcan Highway, the things that have been brought to our people in those areas. When assessing the social impacts of large projects, the social fabric of the First Nations need to be considered. Again, I mentioned the effects that we went through with the Alcan Highway, the goldrush, the residential schools. These effects were left behind for us to deal with.

In our community of Dawson, we are dealing with the effects that the mining, the Viceroy mining, has left us, and it was something that came and left. We were more or less promised 11 years of the Viceroy Mine in our area, and we were getting benefits from that. So, some of the things that happened was how the communities, the marketing, the businesses, you know, had to sort of upgrade and bring more products and things into Dawson, into their businesses to complement, I guess, Viceroy.

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.

BILL TRERICE: Like Clara, the time has finally come, it’s finally here. First of all, I would like to thank Rob for inviting me; and second, I would like to thank everyone here for listening so carefully. As soon as I sat up here, I realized right away that people are very in tune, very focused, listening very clearly; and I appreciate that. I think everyone who has presented here appreciates that so far, as well. I think it demonstrates the importance of YESAA to the Yukon and to Yukon’s future. From that I sat back this morning and went through a few things that I saw about YESAA I thought were important.

In my view, YESAA is a real opportunity to do something that is very unique in the Yukon. I think it’s an opportunity to build the Government we should have created many years ago in my view. The first aspect of it is how it crosses jurisdictional lines. Many people have said that there are too many governments in the Yukon, too many institutions and so on; and quite possibly, but that’s not really the point. I think we’ve established these -- especially the First Nations’ have been established, and they’re not going to integrate together, maybe on a tribal level, I doubt it on a regional level. I really like this aspect, because I’m really into understanding regional systems and how YESAA creates, in a sense, a Yukon regional system. So, instead of each person looking at their own world view and whatever comes to their desk or through your community, it’s an opportunity to really look at the Yukon as one whole and as a government system. It’s going to be an opportunity to develop a government system that is more reflective of the region.

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 Yukon. I think this is really important. I think we’ve concentrated too much influence in Whitehorse, and that’s going to be a problem for us in the future. I guess “devolution” is maybe not the right word, but I think everyone understands what I mean by shifting the government throughout the Yukon to better represent all of Yukon versus the urban base. How YESAA is very much a knowledge-base and information-base process. Every time that we use information and data, I think we benefit a lot; because it focuses us to really look at reality, as opposed to our own ideologies or what we’ve learned in the past and whatnot. By having information and data conducted in a scientific way, this is a way to really benefit from the world as it is and as it exists. Again, just on information and how it becomes its own entity in a sense.

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 Pelly, and we did a local resource management planning project. This was pre-land claims and whatnot. And at the end of that whole process, it was gathering information, gathering data, making maps and trying to engage the community, which we never did properly at all; and I’ll definitely take some responsibility for that. I didn’t realize how important engaging people was at the time, and I do now certainly. But at the end of it all, what I realized was that up in Pelly we have a very large land base, and we have a very small and focused population; and there are not a lot of people who live on the land and who are engaged on the land in a really active, ongoing way. You have very active fish camps and a very active hunting seasons, and what-now. Trapping really dropped off in the ‘80’s throughout the Yukon; but even more than that, there weren’t just people on the land, gathering information, knowing what went on when things happened. So, I realized that if we were going to manage the land in the future that traditional economies or some branch of traditional economies or a version of traditional economies will be very important; because traditional economies ultimately I think provide the foundation to manage the land. I’ll explain what I mean by that.

At one time, 200 years ago plus before the epidemics came through, the Yukon was evenly distributed somewhat. You know, people were not living in concentrated communities. They travelled across the land on a seasonal basis and there was only one type of development I think, and that was trails. They had a really complex trail network, a very efficient way of getting around. If you ever walk out in the bush, you realize that you can save a lot of time if you have a good trail. People realized that a long time ago, as well. So, the trail transportation system was very important, and it’s something that has been really lost, and it’s really unfortunate; because without trails, we cannot access the land. It’s a very important aspect, and if you can’t get out there, and then, you don't know what’s going on, you lose your knowledge of what’s happening in the area.

So, aboriginal people have lived in the Yukon for maybe 10,000 years or something, and in that time, they developed an economy that was based off of their environment, their surrounding environment. So, their economies were based on harvesting resources. In order to do that, they had to know where the resources were and how to utilize those resources without destroying them.

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 Yukon in ways that will be sustainable but also support larger social and government functions.

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 Yukon, climate change probably being the biggest one, which everyone can recognize. We have to do more to protect the land in the future. I think that begins with developing a good understanding of the land.

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 Yukon, the environment itself is its own thing in a sense. It functions on its own, and you don't need people to analyze it, like you need people to analyze societies. So, in a sense, the environment exists and functions under its own intelligence in many respects, environmental designs and these types of things. So, when I talk about “regional systems”, what I’m trying to focus on is how are we going to look at the whole region as one unit; and I think the way to do that is through developing sort of like models in a sense, models of the Yukon; so, to try to take the Yukon and convert as much of the reality that exists there into data and information, architectures and, you know, the types of analyses systems that allow us to crunch down watersheds or plant species or the interaction between the environment and the systems that take place and whatnot.

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 Yukon; when you think about models, it’s not just the Yukon. Combining information is important for many other reasons, as well. So, cultural, for example, we need processes for people to organize their cultural information. We need more information about sociological, how people are actually functioning; and we need to know more about world context when it comes to, say, international economies or industries. So, if you have these regional systems in place, and they’re not going to be in place for many, many years; but what they’ll allow to be done with something like YESAA is when a project happens, people can very quickly pull together a lot of data sets that are already organized, and that’s going to be a pretty big advantage. It will also allow people to not only organize -- once those models are created, in a sense, that represents a form of intelligence on its own, which people can examine it. So, a project can come in, and they can pull down the same types of information. That will help them to develop better plans. It will help them to input better projects. So, ultimately it’s going to help the whole process in that direction, as well. It’s going to make the process more efficient, because people are going to have more information in the front of the process; and then, the process institutions themselves will be able to use regional systems to better pull out information in a very quick and more comprehensive way possibly.

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 Yukon needs a vision. We need to get together and say, “What do we want? What do we need? What do we need to sustain ourselves? These are our resources. How are we best going to use them in each area?”

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 Yukon sustain itself without that big injection from Ottawa every year? Are we living in a false economy? Can we keep this up? Like, what do we need? We have to look at our resources, where we’re going, what we’ve got; and I think we need to sit down and have an overall vision and communication.

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 Alaska.

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 Yukon to get this job done, because we have to do it; and as governments, that’s our job. I do know in Carcross, when I was with the leadership there, every four years the leadership would change. There’d be turmoil, nothing ever really got done. We went backwards an awful lot. A lot of development happened without us. When we went back to our traditional form of governance, we went from probably five-to-ten decision-makers running the organization for four years, and then, another five-to-six-to-to-ten would take over. When we went back to our traditional form of governance and got the grassroots people involved, got more of our direction going, where we wanted to go, what was our vision, we’ve probably got close to 140 people now making decisions, and the people are appointed. No one is elected anymore, and we’ve come an awful long way in a very short time.

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.