Ministry to pursue demarcation of Amerindian Communities

Jan 04, 2010 News

Minister of Amerindian Affairs, Pauline Sukhai has placed the issue of demarcation (separation) of Amerindian Communities high on the agenda for this year. At a recent press conference, Minister Sukhai explained that thus far there are a total of three land titles, while there are 11 untitled ones. Additionally, demarcation is still in process as only 13 have been conducted for 2009.

This number includes those that were running from 2008 to 2009 since demarcation is a long and expensive exercise.

According to Sukhai each year, the Amerindian Affairs Ministry is provided with $50 million to address the issue of demarcation but that money is only able to demarcate between three 3 to four communities per year.

Meanwhile, despite this the Amerindian Affairs Ministry had a fair year in the sense that under the new Amerindian Act, it was able to conduct elections in all title villages for the first time.

Elections were also conducted for Community Council Toshaos, which are for untitled Amerindian Villages. There was also the installation of Senior Councilors for satellite villages. Satellite villages are settlements within a titled land for which the management has been entrusted to the Senior Councilors. “So it was a series of establishing management and governance structure within the titled, satellites and the untitled communities,” Minister Sukhai said.

Elections were also held for settlements which are not fully close to meeting the criteria for titling.

“When one look at the number of elections across the country in all the ten administrative regions and the logistics that goes with the coordination, planning and execution of the election, it is a huge task.”

Sukhai explained that the elections was one of the greatest tasks undertaken by the Ministry, since some of the elections had to be held in difficult terrain and the staff had to ensure that it was done in accordance with the new act.

Subsequently after the elections, the Ministry had to convene the National Toshaos Council Meeting which comprised of all the leaders from the various villages and communities. “It meant that we had to deploy the skills of our staff to coordinate so that we could successfully facilitate and convene this coming together of all the leaders.”

The conference was held for a total of five days. Some of the issues discussed at the conference include advancing the titling of the lands and advancing the program of demarcation (separation) of the titled communities.