Yet another commissioned report concludes that treaties with First Nations, as currently being negotiated, will have "huge benefits." No one is stopping to study the antiquated structures that have delivered what has been a flawed and failed process.

These structures are so dysfunctional that a judicial inquiry is now warranted. It will quickly reveal that the Ottawa-based Indian Affairs and Fisheries departments keep an iron hand upon the process; they only negotiate with First Nations that agree to identical boilerplate formulas, developed in Ottawa and, to some extent, Victoria. Innovative new ideas by young First Nations people, as being proposed by the Gitxsan, are ignored. Also ignored are requests to rebuild depleted local herring, salmon and eulachon stocks, developments that would boost the entire economy.

Continued Ottawa-based "top-down" methods of negotiating are the reason the process has failed so completely.

Until the treaty process is completely redesigned, it will continue to enrich only a few in Ottawa, at the expense of the public purse and the First Nations.

David Ellis

Vancouver