• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Fish, Land and Cash Big Parts of Prince George, B.C., Treaty; Ceremony Sunday

Posted on: Sunday, 29 October 2006, 12:00 CST

By DIRK MEISSNER

VICTORIA (CP) - Fish, land and cash are the highlights of a British Columbia land-claims treaty billed as the first agreement reached under a government and aboriginal process that has been grinding along since the 1990s.

Three levels of government will gather in Prince George on Sunday to initial the final agreement between the 315-member Lheidli T'enneh Band and the federal and B.C. governments.

It will be the first B.C. treaty since the historic Nisga'a deal signed in 1998 with aboriginals in the province's vast northwest.

The Nisga'a treaty, after more than 100 years of on-again, off-again negotiations, was hailed as British Columbia's first modern-day treaty.

The Prince George treaty is being billed by Ottawa and the province as another huge step in building strong and lasting relations with aboriginals.

There are about 200 aboriginal nations in B.C., but less than 20 have their own treaties and about a dozen of those treaties were signed in the mid-1800s between the aboriginals and representatives of the British Crown prior to the province joining Canada.

The Canadian Press has learned the major components of the treaty include a sockeye salmon fishing agreement, rights to 43.3 square kilometres of land in and near the central B.C. city of Prince George and more than $13 million in cash.

The fish component includes a renewable salmon harvest contract negotiated outside of the treaty that grants the Lheidli T'enneh limited rights to less than one per cent of the annual allocation of the valuable Upper Fraser River sockeye run to the commercial fishery, a source said.

The less than one per cent figure works out to roughly 6,000 salmon a year on average.

The treaty allows the Lheidli T'enneh to increase their commercial salmon allotment, but it means reducing the amount of salmon they are allowed to catch for food, social and ceremonial purposes, an aboriginal right guaranteed under the Constitution.

The source said the band can drop up to 50 per cent of its social allotment of salmon in a year in exchange for more commercial salmon, but the request for a change must be made to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans before the start of fishing season.

The amount of food, social and ceremonial salmon available to the band is based on surveys of the number of fish returning to spawn in rivers and streams, but averages about 9,000 sockeye a year.

The number of ceremonial fish available to the band will be capped at 12,500 sockeye regardless of the size of the run, the source said.

The fish component of the treaty provides the Lheidli T'enneh with a one-time grant of $3 million to monitor and assess salmon stocks in the Upper Fraser River area. It also includes a one-time grant of $270,000 to purchase the equipment for the monitoring program.

"The fish are a very important aspect to the Lheidli T'enneh," the source said. "The sockeye salmon fishery has always been a mainstay of their food supply and also their sense of who they are."

The City of Prince George helped put together parts of the land package in the treaty, the source said.

The Lheidli T'enneh originally claimed 45,000 square kilometres of property spreading east of Prince George to just west of the Alberta border.

A significant amount of the land parcels in the treaty are within Prince George city limits, the source said.

The treaty includes an agreement between the band, the city and Prince George regional district which harmonizes property taxes, land-use plans and municipal services.

In exchange for the salmon, land and cash, the Lheidli T'enneh Band agree to give up their income tax-free status, just as the Nisga'a did.

B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell, federal Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice and Chief Dominic Frederick of the Lheidli T'enneh Band will be part of a signing ceremony in Prince George.

The treaty still requires official ratification by the Lheidli T'enneh, who must hold a referendum, and the federal and B.C. governments. There will be votes on the deal in the B.C. legislature and the House of Commons.

"It's never easy to be a leader," said Campbell about the Lheidli T'enneh being the first B.C. aboriginal nation to initial a treaty under the government process.

"It's great work that's been done by the people at the negotiating table and I'm looking forward to Sunday," he said.

Campbell's Liberals have made settling treaties and improving the lives of aboriginals a major focus of their second term after spending years questioning aboriginal issues.

Campbell signalled a major shift in government policy toward aboriginals last year when he reached out to aboriginal organizations and led a first ministers' task force aimed at improving the health, education and social standing of aboriginals across Canada within the next decade.

The premier also backed the former federal Liberal government's Kelowna Accord that called for $5 billion for aboriginals, and he denounced Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives for appearing not to support the deal.

The Lheidli T'enneh treaty is the first of what is expected to be three final treaty agreements this year in B.C.

The Tsawwassen First Nation in suburban Vancouver is close to announcing an initialling ceremony and the Maa-nulth tribal group on the west coast of Vancouver Island is nearing the final agreement stage.

Source: Canadian Press

More News in this Category