The Negotiations Division is responsible for leading the GNWT’s participation at land, resources and self-government negotiations in the NWT. Successfully concluding land, resources and self-government agreements throughout the NWT will lay the foundation for attaining political certainty, building mutually respectful government to government relations and realizing the economic potential of the NWT.
The need for negotiations arises from:
• Differing understandings between the Crown and First Nations
of what was agreed upon at the time Treaties 8 and 11 were signed;
• The absence of a Treaty with certain Aboriginal peoples indigenous
to the NWT; and
• The need to clarify what are the Aboriginal peoples of the NWT’s
Aboriginal and Treaty rights.
The parties to Aboriginal rights negotiations in the NWT have chosen to enter into negotiations with a view to reaching an agreement on what these rights are, rather than pursing clarification of these rights through legal action and the Courts.