Northwest Passage
Author: Gzowski, Peter. Source: Maclean's v. 112 no26
(July 1 1999) p. 60-3.
The native groups are in turn divided into at least as
many different bands and alliances as there are languages. Less than 10
years ago, this might have been different. In 1991, even as the Inuit
were pursuing their own claim, the leaders of what had become known as
the Dene Nation appeared to have reached a land-claim settlement with
Ottawa, and that spring there was dancing in the streets of Yellowknife.
But the claim -- and, virtually, the Dene Nation itself -- fell apart
when two bands refused to ratify it.
Since then, the various peoples have been negotiating on
their own, some, though far from all, successfully. Because the
settlement of the Inuit claim in July, 1993, the largest in our history,
was an integral part of the evolution of Nunavut, some western peoples
have been wondering if they, too, shouldn't be seeking the kind of
self-determination Nunavut represents, bypassing Yellowknife and dealing
directly with Ottawa -- government, as it were, to government. The eight
claims have turned the western Arctic into a huge checkerboard. As Mike
Ballantyne, a former Northwest Territories cabinet minister and Speaker
of the legislature, told me late last year as the dawn of Nunavut
approached: 'It's going to be Yugoslavia without guns.'.
It hasn't been, of course, and the televised carnage in
Kosovo was a reminder, by contrast, of how peaceably and democratically
northern Canadians are proceeding. But there have been tensions in the
newly divided North, and even Mike Ballantyne, who chuckled when I
reminded him last month of his Yugoslav analogy -- 'It's actually fun,
don't you think?' he said -- admits the squabbles are popping up faster
than anyone expected . . . .
At its heart, the struggle is between aboriginals and
whites. The three largest towns all have white majorities, while
virtually all the outlying communities are predominantly aboriginal, so
the proposed redistribution would almost certainly see the legislature's
first white majority in nearly a decade. Many non-aboriginals think
that's fine. As power has moved down to regional native bodies, many
whites see the legislature as the last remaining place where they'll
have a voice. The natives, on the other hand, think a non-native
majority would want to slow down the process of land claims, many of
which are funded by Yellowknife, in favour of the needs of the bigger
towns. As Mike Ballantyne says: 'It's all about balance.'. . . . .
As critics like to point out, of course, that 40,000 is
smaller than the population of, say, Chatham, Ontario. But unlike many
southern Canadian politicians who come to elected office with only the
most general ideas of some of the issues they'll confront, most northern
leaders, certainly the aboriginals, have been studying, negotiating over
and struggling with these matters all of their adult lives. It's a long,
arduous, painstaking process, but in the vast beautiful laboratory of
Canada's North, it holds much promise for the future of the country --
and, perhaps, for an increasingly restive world.
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for the procedures to follow.