N O R T H W E S T T E R R I T O R Y M É T I S N ATION

January 21, 2014

Dr. Harry Swain, Joint Review Panel Chair; Ms. Jocelyne Beaudet, Joint Review Panel Member; and Mr. James S. Mattison, Joint Review Panel Member c/o Site C Clean Energy Project Joint Review Panel Secretariat Brian Murphy, Panel Co-Manager 4th Floor, 836 Yates Street, PO Box 9426 Stn Provincial Government Victoria, BC V8W 9V1 email: [email protected] [email protected]

Dear Panel:

Re: Response to Undertaking 46: Aboriginal Rights

The Northwest Territory Métis Nation (“NWTMN”) appeared before the Joint Review Panel on January 9, 2014. In response to Panel questions, the NWTMN was provided with the following Undertaking:

Undertaking 46: To provide the Panel with a statement of asserted and established Aboriginal Rights including anything in reference from the AIP regarding Section 35 rights.

The purpose of this letter is to provide the Panel with the information requested in this Undertaking.

Our January 9, 2014 submission to the Panel (Hearing Exhibit 087; Document #2385) stated:

The Northwest Territory Métis Nation (NWTMN) is comprised of the Indigenous Métis from the in the . The NWTMN is comprised of the Métis Council, the Fort Smith Métis Council and the Hay River Métis Government Council.

Citizens of the NWTMN form a distinct Métis Nation within , with Aboriginal rights to land, resources, and government throughout their traditional territory. The Indigenous Métis of the NWTMN have a distinct history, culture

BOX 720 • FORT SMITH , NT CANADA • X0E 0P 0 PHONE: (867) 872 - 2770 • FAX: (867) 87 2 - 2 7 7 2 – 2 – and way of life. Ancestors of the NWTMN have lived on the lands along the , around and elsewhere in the Northwest Territories from the late 1700s, and have governed themselves according to their own laws and customs. Métis ancestors of the NWTMN settled in this area starting during the late 1700s, during the northern expansion of the fur trade, and intermarried with and Cree families as well as with other indigenous Métis families to form a distinct Northern Métis community and culture.

The Métis helped to establish communities in the Northwest Territories including the communities of Fort Rae, Fort Resolution, Fort Smith, and Fort Reliance. Since that time, the Métis of the Northwest Territories have relied on hunting, trapping, and fishing for their livelihood, while also actively participating in the European economy as traders, interpreters, guides, tradesmen, river pilots, entrepreneurs, and wage employees in a wide variety of fields.

The Traditional Territory of the Métis members of the NWTMN includes the Northwest Territories and northern , which includes the Peace-Athabasca Delta and the Slave River. The history and way of life of the NWTMN is set out in the Declaration of the NWTMN, passed at the 2013 Annual General Assembly, a copy of which is attached.

The Métis historically have practiced before the establishment of government, and continue to practice throughout this area, a traditional way of life that includes wildlife harvesting, trapping, fishing, hunting, and harvesting of plants and trees for personal use, family use, community use, and gifting and trading.

The three Métis Councils of the NWTMN were full participants to the negotiations that led to the initialing of the Dene/Métis Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement (the “Dene / Métis Agreement”) in 1990, which was to accommodate the aboriginal rights and title of the Dene / Métis. However, the Dene / Métis Agreement was not ratified by the Dene and Métis. The Dene / Métis Agreement is the basis for the current negotiations. Note that the Sahtu, Gwich’in and Tlicho have all reached Land Claim Agreements based upon the Dene / Métis Agreement framework.

In 1996, the NWTMN signed the NWTMN Framework Agreement with the Government of Canada and Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT) to commence negotiations on land, resources and self-government issues based upon the previous Dene / Métis negotiation model and have reached the Agreement-In-Principle stage. The AIP sets the substantive basis for the negotiation of the NWTMN Land and Resources Final Agreement, and includes the following:  recognized that the Métis of the NWTMN have traditionally used and occupied lands in the Northwest Territories;  A definition of Métis;  it provides for the continuation of Métis traditional wildlife, fish, plant and tree harvesting practices throughout Agreement Area (South Slave region);

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 it provides for Métis Land ownership throughout the Slave Slave region and Métis Community Land ownership (quantum is based upon a share of the Dene / Métis Agreement), and the right to use water;  it includes a Capital Transfer and Resource Revenue Sharing;  it requires consultation for oil and gas exploration and mineral exploration and development;  it includes the requirement for impact and benefit agreements;  commencement of self-government and co-management negotiations, including land and water management;  Métis involvement respecting heritage resources, protected areas and parks; and  Does not address the Aboriginal rights of the NWTMN in the Northern Alberta. At this time, Government is consulting with other aboriginal groups in respect to the proposed NWTMN Land and Resources Agreement-in-Principle. Most of the consultations are complete and the parties are seeking to have the AIP executed.

Canada has implemented an Interim Land Withdrawal in the South Slave region in support of land selection negotiations with the NWTMN and another Aboriginal party. There are two Interim Land Withdrawals in the South Slave region – MAP 1 shows these withdrawals (OIC 2012-0410 and OIC 2013-949) – and as can be seen, land on both banks of the Slave River along essentially the entire length of the river and delta has been withdrawn. An Interim Land Withdrawal prevents any new dispositions of land to any party for the period of time of the withdrawal to enable land selection negotiations.

Additionally, the NWTMN is negotiating agreements with government and is involved in regulatory processes for the recognition and accommodation of Métis land and harvesting aboriginal rights throughout our traditional territory, including representative participation as an Aboriginal Government in respect to the following:  The NWTMN are one of the Aboriginal Governments that are party to the Northwest Territories Lands and Resources Devolution Final Agreement;  Implementation of the Interim Measures Agreement between Canada, GNWT and the NWTMN, that defines the process whereby the NWTMN pre-screens proposed activities and authorizations within the South Slave area. MAP 2 shows the extent of the NWTMN IMA area;  Wildlife Act which accommodates the aboriginal harvesting rights of the NWTMN in the NWT;  Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act updating;  Proposed Wood Buffalo National Park Traditional Activities Regulations with Parks Canada that will recognize Métis harvesting rights within Wood Buffalo Nation Park;  Mackenzie River Basin Bilateral Agreement between the Government of Alberta and the Government of the Northwest Territories– party to negotiations

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 Great Slave Lake Advisory Committee;  Protected Area Strategy for Buffalo Lake Area;  GNWT Watershed Strategy;  Peace Athabasca Delta Environmental Monitoring Program;  Community based Water, Sediments and Fish Monitoring – Slave River and Slave River Delta;  NWT Regional Contaminants Committee;  Cree Language project;  Aboriginal Aquatic Resource and Oceans Management;  Species at Risk; and  Caribou, Bison and wildlife cooperative management including participation on Management Boards.

As we stated in our January 9, 2014 presentation to the Panel, the proposed Site C project will impact upon the exercising of our Section 35 aboriginal rights, including harvesting of wildlife and migratory birds, fishing, trapping and other traditional activities. We note that fish, wildlife, birds and plants are important traditional food sources for our Métis members, all of which may be impacted by the proposed Site C project as well as from the cumulative impacts of this proposed project and past projects – which in themselves have resulted in significant negative impacts to our traditional lifestyle and activities through changes to the ecosystem, water flows and other impacts to our traditional territory. The Bennett Dam has drastically altered water flows on the Slave River, adversely affecting the delta through decrease in water levels, and negatively affecting the ability of members to trap, fish and harvest as a result in the unnatural water fluctuations.

It is the position of the NWTMN that the Métis must continue to be involved in the management of water within the South Slave to ensure that there are no further adverse effects from this proposed project including adverse cumulative impacts. The NWTMN is requesting traditional use funding be provided to document the adverse affects of the Bennett Dam on the way of life of the NWTMN. Additionally, the Métis must be compensated for the past adverse impacts – many of which have been well documented in the scientific literature and well as through our own Traditional Knowledge – and that BC Hydro must commence meaningful consultation with the Métis on these matters.

– 2 – Thank you for the opportunity to present this requested information to the Panel.

Yours truly,

ORIGINAL SIGNED

Garry Bailey President

Attachments: Declaration of the NWTMN , MAP 1 and MAP 2

Schedule “A”

Northwest Territory Métis Nation Declaration

We, the Indigenous Métis of the South Slave region, declare and affirm that:

a) we are a distinct Métis Nation within Canada; b) we have Aboriginal rights to lands, resources and governance throughout our traditional territory protected under section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982; and c) we have a right of self-determination.

We hold these rights because we are aboriginal people of the Mackenzie and Athabasca river basins. Our ancestors lived on these lands, which the Creator provided, and governed themselves according to our own laws and customs, from time before memory.

We continue to live in harmony with nature and respect the bounties of the land.

We have lived in friendship, peace and harmony with our Aboriginal neighbours, in accordance with the Great Law that was given to our Aboriginal ancestors by the Creator. We, as Métis people, have a distinct history, culture and way of life separate and independent from the First Nation people, with whom we have had and continue to have relations. We honour our Aboriginal ancestors and relations.

Clearly, we are distinct from First Nation peoples. We, the Indigenous Métis of the South Slave, are direct descendants of the first people of European heritage to reach this region, well before Canada became a nation in 1867.

We have traditionally used, occupied and managed the land and resources throughout our traditional territory before Government unilaterally imposed its control and management over our traditional territory and resources. The traditional territory of the Métis Nation encompasses the whole of the Northwest Territories and the northern parts of the provinces bordering the Northwest Territories.

Before the fall of Quebec in 1759, French and mixed blood “coureurs de bois” traveled into the Athabasca country, living with First Nation families on the land. When North West Company traders explored north to Great Slave Lake in the 1780s, they met the family of the French/Dene “coureur de bois” Francois Beaulieu I and his wife Ethiba.

This family was only one of several Métis families established in the region in the 1700s. Because of their presence, trading companies set up posts in the area of what is now Fort Resolution, beginning in the 1780s. All of the Indigenous Métis are descended from one or more of these families.

Beaulieu and his son, Francois Beaulieu II, along with other Métis families including, but not limited to, the Mandeville, Cayen, Houle, Poitras, Tourangeau, St. Germain,

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Schedule “A”

Mercredi, Lafferty and Heron families, were vital players in building the country that was to become Canada. Métis played a nationally significant role in northern exploration, the fur trade and Treaty-making. At the same time, our ancestors were creating a new nation of Métis.

Francois Beaulieu I was one of Alexander Mackenzie’s voyageurs on his epic journeys down the Mackenzie River to the Ocean in 1789 and, in 1792, up the Peace River and over the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. His brother Jacques was an interpreter for explorer/trader Peter Pond.

Francois Beaulieu II and Francois Baptiste “le Camarade” de Mandeville were advisors, guides, hunters and interpreters for Sir ’s successful expeditions to Great Bear Lake and the Arctic Coast. Beaulieu mapped the route to the mouth of the for Franklin, via the Marion and Camsell Rivers and Great Bear Lake, Beaulieu also brought Father Faraud, the first priest north of 60°, to Fort Resolution in 1852.

Beaulieu II resisted the Hudson’s Bay Company monopoly in Rupert’s Land, travelling to trade as far as the Red River settlement in what is now Manitoba. He and his clan were based at Salt River, now known as Thebacha, from where they hunted buffalo. Beaulieu II had a camp at the Salt Plains (within the area now known as Wood Buffalo National Park). He extracted salt from the salt plains for trade, and farmed, as well as operated the trading post. Beaulieu II was considered a leader of the Dogrib people north of Great Slave Lake, as well as a head trader of the Chipewyan south of Great Slave Lake. He traded with the , and as far west as Fort Simpson.

Mandeville, who was allied by marriage to the distinguished Dogrib chief Edzo and a close friend of the famous Yellowknives chief Akaitcho, helped make peace among the warring Dene peoples. The Mandevilles lived and hunted for trade as well as domestic use, in the Thelon River area by the 1830’s. “Le Camarade” described and mapped the portage route via the upper Thelon to the Back River for the explorer . Mandeville helped build Fort Reliance for Back in 1833. The Mandevilles also founded the village at Little Buffalo River, near the present site of Fort Resolution.

These were not the only posts and villages the early Métis founded. In 1868, Joseph King Beaulieu, son of Francois Beaulieu II, founded a trading post at Fond du Lac (Snowdrift), near the site of the present community of Lutsel K’e. In 1874, King Beaulieu built the trading post at the last rapid on the Slave River, now known as Fort Smith, from the portage which started at Fitzgerald. Other communities founded by Métis in the same era included Jean River, Rocher River and Smith’s Landing/Fitzgerald.

The Métis Nation of the South Slave arose during the same era as the Métis fur trade communities from the American Midwest-Great Lakes region and the historic Métis Nation of the Canadian prairies. Our Métis Nation had trade and marriage links to those communities. Many of us are related to Métis people from the Great Lakes or Red River who came north in the 1700’s and 1800’s. The Lafferty family is one distinguished family

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Schedule “A” who can trace their heritage back to the American Great Lakes Métis Communities, via Red River, Fort Chipewyan and Fort Resolution.

We honour our Métis women, who were among the first northern Aboriginal women to receive a Euro-Canadian education. Some, such as Francois Beaulieu’s daughter Catherine, were educated at Red River and returned to act as educators and catechists. Those who were the wives of traders were often midwives and healers. They were also known for their strength of character and independence. Catherine Beaulieu had her own dog team; and made lengthy journeys around Great Slave Lake to trade with the people.

We are proud Métis, known historically as “the free people”, or “gens libres” in Michif French. As early as 1862, Francois Beaulieu II identified himself to Father Emile Petitot as “a Métis born and bred in the woods”. He lived to be 101 years old, and left many descendants. The priests referred to him, fittingly, as “Le Patriarche” – the patriarch or founding father of the Indigenous Métis.

Métis knowledge of the waterways of the region and development of its transportation routes and methods have a solid foundation in Canada’s history. We were famous long- distance canoemen, who showed traders new and shorter routes to the fur country. After 1826, we were York boatmen, and captains of brigades. And, from 1883 when steam boats came to the region, we were boat-builders, woodcutters, trackers, deckhands, and pilots like the legendary Johnny Berens.

Some of our ancestors fought in the battles for Métis rights to protect their traditional land on the Prairies. Most of the Indigenous Métis of the South Slave were not part of the Red River Métis resistance, but regarded it as important and kept in touch with events. Martyred Métis Louis Riel is said to be our relative, through the Bouchers, a Chipewyan family of Ile a la Cross, Saskatchewan.

Many times, our Dene relatives have honoured our people by selecting them as spiritual, trade, war or talking chiefs. In 1899 at Fort Chipewyan, influential Métis trader Pierre Mercredi interpreted the ’ conditions for accepting Treaty 8. In 1900, at Fort Resolution, Michel Mandeville was the interpreter. There, the Chipewyans put forward another respected Métis leader, Pierre Beaulieu, to be their chief. The Treaty Commissioner refused to allow this, because he was Métis and because he refused to accept extinguishment as a condition of the Treaty.

Pierre Mercredi interpreted again during the 1920 Treaty boycott in Fort Resolution, and is credited with using his good offices to help resolve the crisis. This action was typical of the role Métis played throughout our history, as intermediaries and diplomats between the Aboriginal peoples and the Canadian state. Two Métis men, Napoleon Lafferty and Patrice Mercredi, became the only native northerners to be ordained as priests in the Mackenzie-Athabasca district.

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Schedule “A”

Other Métis helped Canada establish its presence in our territory by working to carry the mail hundreds of miles by dog-team and as buffalo rangers and special constables, enforcing the law as far east as the Thelon River valley in the Barren Lands. Many of our people fought for Canada in the two World Wars, the Korean War, the Gulf War and Bosnia, including members of the Loutit, Heron, Sanderson, Mercredi and Evans families. Our people continue to serve with the Canadian Forces to this day.

We have suffered many of the same wrongs as our relatives, including attempts by the Government of Canada to take over our lands and resources,; to govern our people without consultation and our consent and to eradicate our languages and way of life. Métis suffered as much from government neglect, as interference. Our rights and our very existence as an Aboriginal people were never acknowledged.

Our treatment by Canada in the last 100 years has been unjust through Government’s non-recognition of our Aboriginal rights.

We hold the federal government to account for creating inequity in our communities, where none existed before. When Status Indians were permitted by regulation to continue harvesting in Wood Buffalo National Park, we were not. We were forced out of the Wood Buffalo National Park by Canada without compensation or recognition of our aboriginal rights. When Status Indians and Inuit had their medical treatment paid for, we did not. We have supported institutions like the Church and the education system but found ourselves subject to racism and discrimination, often enshrined in government policy. As a result, many of our people lived in hardship. Even now, there continues to be differential treatment between Métis, Status Indian and Inuit students whereby Métis students continue to receive lesser benefits than Status Indian and Inuit students.

We are a strong people and we have survived to this day because of the strength, unity, love and caring of our families and community.

We, the Indigenous Métis of the South Slave, now reside mainly in the communities of Fort Smith, Hay River, Fort Resolution and in the Northwest Territories. We did not cede, surrender or release Aboriginal title to the lands and resources throughout our traditional territory. We shall always have Aboriginal rights to the use of our lands and resources. We also have the inherent right to govern ourselves in matters that are internal to our communities and traditional territory, integral to our distinctive culture and practices, customs and traditions, and with respect to our unique relationship to our land, water and resources, and essential to our operations as governments.

The federal government has a fiduciary obligation to our people, which is protected by section 35 of the Constitution of Canada. This is a sacred trust that must be upheld by the Crown and we insist that justice prevail.

Our rights are not dependent on, and cannot be compromised, by the will of other governments. We have the right to exercise them for our benefit at any time. We would prefer to negotiate in good faith with other governments to take our rightful place in

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Schedule “A”

Canada. We are willing to work with First Nation people and other governments for the purposes of community harmony.

We shall govern ourselves in all areas that affect Métis people, with the guiding principle that future generations must benefit from our actions. We, ourselves, will take on the responsibility of healing the wounds of the past that were inflicted upon us by others. Our government is based on our beliefs, values, traditions, history, customs and laws as Métis people. Our Métis Constitution sets out our principles, structures of government, jurisdictions and authorities.

We place high value on the wisdom of our Elders and will continue to use their guidance in all matters affecting Métis people. We will ensure that their knowledge of our identity, our nationhood and historic place within Canada, and of our Aboriginal rights, is passed on through our children for generations to come.

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E

Fort Resolution

Slave River

Wood Buffalo National Park

Map 1: Fort Smith Federal Land Withdrawals around the Slave River. The purpose of these Orders is to "withdraw from disposal certain tracts of territorial lands in order to facilitate the 1:1,020,000 Kilometers conclusion of Aboriginal land agreements" 0 10 20 40 60 80

PC Number 2012 - 0410 Copyright: ©2013 Esri, DeLorme, NAVTEQ, Sources: Esri, GEBCO, NOAA, P C Number 2013 - 949 National Geographic, DeLorme, NAVTEQ, Geonames.org, and other contributors 115°0'0"W 110°0'0"W 105°0'0"W 100°0'0"W

Proposed Contract Area (NWTMN) March 2011 64°0'0"N IMA Area/Contract Area CommunityGamètì Boundary Wekweètì East Arm AOI

64°0'0"N National Parks

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Disclaimer: Without Prejudice Confidential For Discussion Purposed Only Not for Distribution 63°0'0"N Discovery Whatì 63°0'0"N

Rae Edzo Reliance Yellowknife Detah Lutselk'e 62°0'0"N 62°0'0"N

Fort Providence 61°0'0"N

Fort Resolution 61°0'0"N Kakisa Hay River K'atlodeeche Pine Point Enterprise 60°0'0"N

60°0'0"N Fort Smith Indian Cabins Fitzgerald

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