Costly, long land c Pa ee EN ag eg eS PME generate gs case heard | in Smithers | TERRACE — The longest and most expensive Jand claims court case in Canadian history continues today in Smithers with lawyers for northwest natives 10 days into thelr closing arguments, Lawyers for the Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en have prepared 3,200. pages of closing arguments to back their clients’ claim to 57,000 square kilometres of northwest B.C, centered on the Hazeltons. The cost of the case in which the Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en are asking Chief Justice Alan. McEachern to declare they have ownership and jurisdiction over the land is conservatively estimated at more than. $20 million. . Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en spokesman Don Ryan said they have spent approximately. $14 million.— half of which has come from various federal government sources — on the case. The natives’ closing arguments began April. 2 and are expected to last until April 27 in Smithers. The case the moves to Vancouver with the defendant provincial and federal governments expected to take. another two months for their arguments. Closing arguments follow three years of court appearances which have been taking place in Vancouver and in Smithers. The Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en case is based on two central arguments — that the federal and provincial governments failed to sign treaties in the last century and that natives have had occupa- tion, use and authority over the land for thousands of years. In opening statements April 2, Gitksan. and Wet’suwet’en lawyer Stuart Rush ‘told Chief - Justice McEachern that rights of natives in the constitution must be respected by the provin- cial and federal governments. Denial of native rights con- travenes the Canadian charter of rights and native history and use of the land, he said. ‘Ail that Canada can see of the Gitksan and Wet’suwet'en is their pre-1900 hunting, trapp- ing, fisheing and berry-picking activities,’? said Rush. “At its core this is a racist position deliberately blind or refusing to give value to the way of life of the people,’ he said. A second lawyer for the Gitksan and Wet’swuet’en, Peter Grant, told the chief justice that native oral history coupled with evidence from ar- chaeological and other studies proves native occupation and use of the land. Adaawk, or oral histories, demonstrate native arrival and occupation of vacant lands along the Skeena from the time of the receding of the last ice | age, he said. Not recognizing oral history as valid is ‘‘ethnocentric, myopic and and ultimately racist approach to the Gitksan and Wet’suwet'en people,’’ said Grant. His arguments centered on a BATTLE HILL at Kitwanga is one of the examples being used by the Gitksan and Wet'suwet'en,to prove use and occupation of northwest lands in a court case. The hill sat astride a trading route. Battlements on top once protected residents from raids and harm. land called Temiaxhem — roughly the area. from Kitselas east of Terrace to the Kispiox in the Hazeltons -- in which he’ said as many as 10,000 people lived 3,500 years ago. Temlaxhem contained a system of government and laws Doctor deal worked out TERRACE — The Skeena Health Unit and Dr. David Bowering have worked out a deal-for the latter to become its director as well as its chief medical health officer. Bowering had said he would resign if he wasn’t named direc- tor. The deal calls for a job per- formance review in six months and for Bowering and the ex- ecutive of the health unit's board to discuss issues before they are presented to the board. Bowering and health unit board chairman John LeSage said they were happy with. the arrangement; LeSage added that the board is still keeping its options open to pursue a separate director's position if it feels combining the positions isn’t working. The board at first rejected the idea of combining the medical health officer and director posi- tions, saying the result would mean an extra workload given - the large area the health unit covers. That lead to a conflict with the overall administrative struc- ture of the health unit for while © the board hires its chief medical health officer, the provincial government appoints the unit’s director. 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