Northwest Territories premier lashes out at dissident aboriginals

Gary Park

Northwest Territories Premier Stephen Kakfwi has used his toughest language yet in warning dissident aboriginal groups that they risk losing a chance to own part of a proposed Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline.

He said the Deh Cho and Sahtu First Nations leaders who have balked at signing an agreement with Mackenzie Delta gas owners are playing a dangerous game.

“These are high stakes negotiations,” he said during a Calgary visit July 16. “So if it all falls apart, it falls apart.”

Kakfwi indicated frustration that the two groups seemed ready to “air all our dirty laundry in front of everybody (when) we are on the world stage.

“If we are going to have little temper tantrums and petty little things that we air in front of the whole world, I guess that’s how we do it,” he said.

The Deh Cho are weighing their options, while the Sahtu are siding with Houston-based Arctic Resources, which is offering 100 percent aboriginal ownership in a pipeline. The Delta gas owners have proposed a one-third Native stake in a C$3 billion project.

Industry sources are increasingly concerned that aboriginal procrastination could scuttle negotiations, laving the Alaska Highway route to win by default.

But a spokesman for Imperial Oil, the Delta’s lead producer, said the consortium is “not overly concerned with where things are today.”

However, Doug Cardinal, a representative of the Aboriginal Pipeline Group, which is negotiating with the Delta owners, said that if aboriginals press their case too far “we’ll end up empty-handed again.”