Budget issue upsets Nisga’a

NISGA’A GOVERNMENT leaders say they could very well end up suing the federal government if it doesn’t begin to negotiate a financial package that will be worth tens of millions of dollars a year.

The package is part of the 2000 Nisga’a land claims treaty and contains money for core services such as education and health care.

But it is supposed to be renegotiated every five years and the Nisga’a have gone through three years of renewals and extensions without a chance to address critical issues, says Nisga’a Lisims Government chair Kevin McKay.

Those issues include changing priorities for the Nisga’a Nation and inflation, he said.

“The core treaty was concluded in 1998 but with approvals and the like it didn’t come into effect until May 11, 2000 so, in effect, we are now talking about 1998 dollars,” McKay said.

“What we need is the ability to negotiate a set of numbers that reflect what we now face,” he said.

The fiscal agreement in 2006 produced $36.8 million and $38.3 million in 2007, the vast majority of which went to the Nisga’a education system, to the Nass Valley health system, to the four village governments in the Nass and to the three Nisga’a urban locals in Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Terrace.

“What the most frustrating thing for us is that we signed the treaty and so did Canada and there’s the mandate in there to renegotiate the fiscal agreement and they are not doing it,” said McKay. “It’s as if they regard the treaty as something that was over when they signed it, but it’s not.”

“When our negotiators sit across from their negotiators what they say to us is they don’t have the mandate to sign a new [fiscal] agreement.”

McKay said the Nisga’a leadership is perplexed by the federal stance because it holds up the Nisga’a treaty as an example of what modern day treaties can accomplish.

There is a provision for arbitration in the treaty agreement and, ultimately, court action should any party feel the issue is warranted.

“There has been talk in the senior levels of Nisga’a elected leadership,” McKay acknowledged of the possibility.

And he said Nisga’a who gathered in the Nisga’a Nation’s biennial assembly in New Aiyansh the end of April held out the possibility that court action may be contemplated.

“They said they’d never discount the ultimate show of frustration,” McKay continued.

“But we do want to make it clear we are not unhappy with the treaty, how it was negotiated or how it was ratified. We just don’t understand why they are dragging their feet.”

That was a message carried to a federal senate committee which looked at how the federal government acts after treaties have been signed.

For now, the Nisga’a have decided to lobby the various levels of government.

But McKay did say those efforts have so far proven fruitless.

The Nisga’a have become key members of a national coalition of native governments, all of whom have key self government treaties with the federal government.

McKay said other members of the coalition are reporting similar frustrations.