N.W.T. premier says Tlicho should have known about Fortune Minerals court application

The premier of the Northwest Territories says his government did nothing wrong in applying to the courts to settle a negotiation between a mining company and the Tlicho government.

Bob McLeod was responding to the Tlicho government's suggestion that the territorial government issiding with a junior mining company against theFirst Nation.

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"It seems a stretch to me," he said during an interview Monday. "If you negotiate a process in a land-claim agreement, how can you impute motives? Any project that comes along, are they going to accuse us of siding with a mining proponent?"

Fortune Minerals wants to build a 49-kilometre road from the end of the proposed Tlicho all-season road to its NICO project. According to an affidavit from a government official, Fortune wrote to the government to say its attempt to negotiate an access agreement with the Tlicho to allow construction of the road has stalled.

Fortune saidit wants to begin building a mine at the site next year, but needs to negotiate the access agreement because the road would pass over Tlicho lands.

The company wanted to make use of a dispute resolution mechanism in the Tlicho Agreement to settle the access negotiation. The agreement requires two staff to settle disputes, but the positions have been vacant for years. As a back-up, the agreement allows a judge to settle disputes.

The Tlicho government said it was blindsided by the territorial government's request for a judge to step in to settle the negotiation with Fortune. But McLeod said a committee charged with implementing the Tlicho agreement OK'dthe move.

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"We did have the approval of the implementation committee, which included a party from the Tlicho," said McLeod. "We did call their offices, with no response, and we felt that since it was part of the agreed upon land-claim agreement, it was nothing out of the ordinary."

The premier said the dispute was the focus of a meeting he and cabinet minister Wally Schumann had with the Tlicho chiefs' executive committee a week ago. He said the government has agreed to delay its application for a judge until August.

The government feels that will give it enough time to fill at least one of the positions required to use the dispute resolution mechanism in the Tlicho Agreement. If that happens, a judge will not be required.

"We also agreed to discuss communications, especially the work of the implementation committee," said McLeod. "If it's not fulfilling the functions of the three parties, maybe we need a different process."