Welcome to Treaty
The first thing to understand about treaty is that it is a process that takes a long time to do correctly. This means that most of the benefits of treaty will be seen by the youth of today rather than those who are older and working on the treaty right now. Treaty is about the future rather than the present.
Benefits of Treaty
There are many benefits to treaty but the greatest one is that having a treaty will help give LBN more control over the territory. The treaty will lay out what LBN has control over and what the Province has control over. By doing this, there will be fewer conflicts and LBN will be able to draw more benefits from the land. The treaty also helps protect LBN culture and heritage sites and give LBN more say in how these are protected. Treaty also includes chapters that allow LBN to have their own government and govern their own territory. Treaty helps make sure the LBN’s future generations have opportunities for education and training. Treaty is an opportunity to write LBN’s future.
Problems with Treaty
The biggest problem with treaty is that it costs so much money to negotiate. The common table is trying to get BC and Canada to forgive the loans that have been made to First Nations to negotiate treaty so this may change. It takes a long time. It takes years and years to make a good treaty. That is why the treaty is about the future generations more than the people here today.
Treaty Chapters
LBN’s treaty is made up of 30 chapters. Each chapter deals with a specific topic like Shared Decision Making. These topics range from governance to environmental issues, to capacity building. When LBN, BC, and Canada get together to negotiate the treaty they work on the chapters one at a time. This makes it easier to work with and helps deal with the issues that are really important to LBN.
Overlaps
An overlap occurs when two First Nations claim the same area. LBN territory is overlapped by several different First Nations along the edge of the territory. The biggest overlap is from Yekooche. They have overlapped LBN from the south end of the lake all the way up past Granisle. This overlap makes it harder for LBN to negotiate and it will have to be resolved before a final agreement can be signed. There are almost no First Nations that do not have some overlap of their territory from their neighbors. Overlaps are one of the things that BC points to as a reason the negotiations are so slow.
More Information, view and download the following pdf's:
