Peel land use plan lawsuit launched

It's official - the future of the Peel watershed is now in the hands of the Yukon Supreme Court.

Two First Nations and two environmental groups, represented by prominent B.C. aboriginal rights lawyer Thomas Berger, filed their lawsuit against the Yukon government today.

They announced the legal challenge in Vancouver to get the attention of those attending the Mineral Exploration Roundup, one of the country's largest industry gatherings.

Berger, who is best known for his work on the N.W.T.'s Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry in the 1970s, led the news briefing.

Flanked by Na-cho Nyak Dun chief Ed Champion and Tr'ondek Hwech'in chief Eddie Taylor, as well the Yukon Conservation Society's Karen Baltgailis and CPAWS-Yukon's Gill Cracknell, Berger said this is a lawsuit nobody wanted.

But after the Yukon government ditched the Peel commission's land use plan - a plan seven years in the making - and replaced it with its own unilateral blueprint for the region, it crossed the legal line, he said.

The territory's modern-day treaty, the constitutionally-entrenched Umbrella Final Agreement, spells out a process for land use planning that must be followed.

The commission's plan protected most of the watershed from industrial development whereas the plan released by the Yukon government last week opens most of the Peel to mining, oil/gas and roads.

"This is a complete rewrite and it has forced these people to court," said Berger.

Just because the conservative Yukon Party government has a majority, it can't ignore the agreements signed 20 years ago with First Nations and Canada, he said.

The agreements also ensure the public also has a say in planning but the Yukon government has ignored that too, he said.

Although this lawsuit deals with the Peel land plan, it's about much more than that, he said.

It's going to test whether governments are obligated to live up to the modern-day treaties signed across the North, he said.

Although the other two Peel First Nations - the Vuntut Gwitchin and the Gwich'in Tribal Council - were not named in this lawsuit, Champion and Taylor said the four First Nations are united behind this legal challenge.

It's now up to the Yukon government to file its statement of defence.

Berger said it's hard to say how long this case will take to make its way through the courts.