Inuit pessimistic about land claim offer

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The Inuit of Labrador will likely reject Newfoundland's latest land claim offer if it doesn't match offers made to other Inuit peoples in Canada in the past.

The Labrador Inuit Association will accept Newfoundland's latest offer of land and shared resource management only if it looks as good as deals like Nunavut in the High Arctic, the Labrador Inuit Association's chief land claims negotiator said.

"I think it's going to take some very serious scrutiny and evaluation," said Toby Andersen.

"The important thing for us is to evaluate this document in a fair manner with a view to evaluating what's been offered by our provincial government compared with

what has been offered to other Inuit in Canada."

Newfoundland Premier Clyde Wells was in Nain to deliver his government's offer to the Inuit association Oct. 12.

The province proposed dividing the Inuit's land into four sections. A Labrador Inuit Settlement Area would encompass the geographic extent of the Labrador Inuit claim to lands and resources.

The province would also hand over 10,360 square kilometres of Crown land and ownership of the sub-surface rights on 2,590 square kilometres of that as Labrador Inuit Lands.

Each Labrador Inuit Land would be surrounded by an eight-kilometre protective zone within which the Inuit would have exclusive wildlife and fish harvesting rights. An Inuit Fishing Area adjoining each land area would give the Inuit exclusive rights to harvest wildlife, fish and aquatic plants.

But the Inuit would have to "co-manage" other aquatic resources in the fishing area with the province.

Newfoundland will also help manage the land and fishing areas with the Inuit but will reserve ownership and rights to exclusively manage all other resources in the province.

:"In terms of the surfaced resources on the Labrador Inuit land, they would have virtually complete say under the proposal," said Premier Wells.

"They have also suggested that they should have a portion of the subsurface resources and we have agreed to that as well."

The Inuit would also have veto power over any development projects within their lands "that did not meet with their approval," he said.

The province's agreement to grant management of only a portion of the land comes in response to the Inuit's own requests, Wells said.

But Andersen said Inuit will likely reject the proposal if the province won't give up as much land or control over resource management as Natives want.

"Labrador is a resource warehouse," Andersen said. "(Wells) has a very impressive media kit. It sounds like he has done very well and made a generous offer. But you need to take the document and read and you'll find out, for one thing, that there is no control."

The Inuit's claim, originally tabled with the federal and provincial governments in 1977, was based on the results of a land-use and occupancy study conducted in the early 1970s, Andersen said.

The study shows that Labrador Inuit have a legitimate, Aboriginal claim to the 55,800 square kilometres that the Inuit have asked for in combined claims.

"It was enough proof that the governments accept a claim based on an Aboriginal right," he said.