It's been 11 years since the current British Columbia treaty process was established. To date, taxpayers have spent over $500 million dollars on a process that has yet to yield a single treaty. Under the current process an end to land claim disputes in British Columbia could take decades or longer to arrive.

The BC treaty process involves a tripartite negotiation table. Meaning there are representatives from the provincial government, federal government and specific Indian band. All the negotiators, lawyers, consultants, researchers and analysts - from all sides - are paid for by the taxpayer.

This funding relationship does not promote an atmosphere that promotes settlement. After all, why negotiate a settlement when the settlement results in the loss of your job.

Over 110 percent of the total land of British Columbia has been named in land claim disputes. This strange phenomenon is due to what is know as territorial overlap, which occurs when more than one Indian band claims the same parcel of land as "traditional territory". What is alarming is the BC treaty process does not require the two or more Indian bands competing for the same settlement area to reach an agreement prior to a treaty being signed.

As a result, taxpayers will likely have to pay compensation on the same piece of land more than once.

There are no deadline dates within the current process. Therefore, in some cases, negotiations for treaties have been on-going for several decades.

One simple change to the process would be to establish deadlines for when treaties are to be finalized. The federal government could set a timeframe of five years for the parties to reach a negotiated settlement. If a settlement is not reached after five years, the federal government could impose a final treaty.

There will be a few who would criticize the imposition of treaties. They would say imposed treaties would not adequately address the needs of Indians. But how is the current system of long drawn out negotiations - that see no end in sight anytime soon - help the people living in native communities. These people are left in a perpetual purgatory until negotiations are finalized. Surely an imposed treaty would be better than continuing the current process.

Timeframes would create incentives to come to a negotiated settlement. Furthermore, development and investment has been stalled in many sectors in BC due to the uncertainty of pending land claims.

Some estimated costs for treaty settlements in British Columbia are as high as $20 billion. The longer the process takes the more money it will cost taxpayers. The process must be changed to reduce the length and uncertainty of negotiations.