New Democratic Party MP Nathan Cullen has a special affinity for the Yukon.

He first visited the territory in the late 1990s on vacation, and he’s been coming back ever since.

In 2004, he was elected to represent the federal riding of Skeena-Bulkley Valley in British Columbia, and he’s held the position ever since. The riding borders southern Yukon.

As he often does en route to Atlin, B.C. – the community is part of his riding – Cullen stopped in Whitehorse on Friday.

He sat down with the Star to talk about the Supreme Court’s Peel decision, the federal NDP’s new leader, and the northern experience.

Dec. 1 was a historic day that was a long time coming, Cullen acknowledged.

After a nearly four-year legal fight, Yukon First Nations and environmentalists saw Canada’s highest court rule in their favour.

The former Yukon Party government had not participated in good faith in the land use planning process for the Peel watershed, the Supreme Court ruled, and the current government will have to go back and consult on a plan that will protect 80 per cent of the area from development.

“After so much bad faith, recent and historic, it’s good when the good guys win,” Cullen said.

“If you want to correct a colonial past, you have to stop acting in a colonial way. And that means negotiating in good faith, and then following through on those negotiations.”

Cullen said the chiefs of the First Nations in his riding – one of the largest and more remote in Canada – have been reading over the Peel decision to ascertain how it will affect future land use planning, wilderness protection and negotiations with government.

National implications

The Supreme Court ruling will have national implications, Cullen suggested.

Canada’s understanding of conservation is changing. His own certainly has.

“Since coming to the North, and eventually representing the Northwest, my sense of conservation has evolved to include people,” he said.

“That there’s a symbiotic relationship that we’re seeking to be on the land, with the land, in a way that will sustain it forever. And I think that’s important.”

He relayed a story former prime minister Jean Chrétien has taken to regaling audiences with.

As Indian Affairs and Northern Development minister beginning in the late 1960s, Chrétien was flying over Canada’s northern territories when he saw a beautiful parcel of land. He resolved to make the area into a park – and so he did.

From this decision, confirmed in a Canadian Geographic article, Auyuittuq National Park in Nunavut was born.

“Everybody claps when he tells this story, and I’m sitting there with a northern perspective saying – was there anybody there? From 30,000 feet, you decided what the future of this land should be?” Cullen said.

“That is a colonial idea. Even if you think you’re doing something good, it’s still the mindset of terra nullius, of nobody (is there) so we can plant a flag and make decisions.”

As a politician, understanding of life in the North is best gained by experiencing that life, in some capacity, Cullen explained.

“You need to get stuck on the road, because the weather’s (bad), and the plane won’t leave because of the fog. You need time to just be with people without your phone going off and running to the next meeting.”

That’s the goal with the party’s new leader, Jagmeet Singh, he said.

The first visible minority leader of a major federal party in the history of Canadian politics, Singh spent his years as an Ontario MPP representing a riding Cullen called “a true suburb” in the Greater Toronto Area.

Cullen said that in the new year, he plans to bring Singh to his B.C. riding for a First Nation celebration that he’s been invited to.

“He’s so jazzed. He is so curious. He’s a very confident person but he’s surprisingly humble when dealing with things that he doesn’t know about,” Cullen said.

And when it comes to the Yukon, Cullen thinks Singh will be just as excited.

“I’m going to write to Jagmeet after this and say, ‘Hey. Just in the Yukon. You would love this place.’”

Singh is currently on a cross-country tour.

There’s been no announcement yet as to a planned northern stop on his agenda.