B.C. ready to sign two major land treaties

Updated Wed. Dec. 6 2006 9:18 PM ET

Canadian Press

VICTORIA -- The largest metropolitan treaty in British Columbia history and a treaty with aboriginals on Vancouver Island will be initialled later this week, bringing to three the number of final agreements reached after more than a dozen years of work.

"It looks like Friday for the Tsawwassen and Saturday for the Maa-nulth," Mike de Jong, the province's minister of aboriginal relations, said Wednesday.

An initialling ceremony is scheduled for Friday on the Tsawwassen reserve south of Vancouver to mark a treaty between the band and the federal and B.C. governments.

"This is really huge," said a source who has been close to the negotiations.

The ornate Fairmont Empress Hotel will be the site Saturday for the official initialling of a treaty involving the Maa-nulth, five First Nations from the Port Alberni area on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

For 13 years, negotiators for aboriginal bands and the provincial and federal governments have been working to reach treaties in a province where few were signed, unlike in the rest of the country.

The first treaty reached under that process was initialled only last month in Prince George.

First Nations groups throughout B.C. have laid claims to "traditional" territory in the province that covers virtually the entire province.

De Jong would not provide details of the treaties, which still must be ratified by the federal Parliament, the provincial legislature and band members.

"It will be a great achievement," said de Jong of the signings. "It's gratifying, I'm sure, for everybody to start to see some results."

The Tsawwassen treaty has been contentious because the reserve is located adjacent to the ferry terminal, the Point Roberts coal port and also involves agricultural land.

Delta officials have objected in the past to plans to remove agricultural land from the province's land reserve to sign it over to the Tsawwassen as part of the agreement.

Late last month, two reports were released expressing concern about the slow pace of negotiating aboriginal treaties in British Columbia.

The auditors general of Canada and British Columbia signed a joint statement that said treaty negotiations are moving so slowly they're concerned the process could be overtaken by changing economic, legal and political times.

There are about 200 First Nations in British Columbia but less than 20 have treaties.

The 1998 treaty between the Nisga'a aboriginals of northwest B.C. and the federal and provincial governments is viewed as B.C.'s first modern-day treaty, but it was reached outside the treaty commission process.