Chief Gosnell received a Doctor of Laws, (Honoris Causa), at a convocation ceremony held October 17, 1997.

Here is the text of his speech to the first graduating class of the new university.

On behalf of the Nisga'a Nation, I am deeply honored to accept this degree from your university. I also want to congratulate all of you - the charter members of this important new insitution - on having reached your academic landmark. As the leaders of a new generation, your talents, your ideas, your enthusiasms, will shape Canadian society in the new millennium.

It is also my fervent hope that some of you will play an active role in helping to settle one of the most historic grievances in Canadian history.

After a century of struggle between the Nisga'a Tribal Council and the B.C. and federal governments, we are now poised to settle the Nisga'a Land Question.

The Nisga'a claim has been perceived as one of the symbols of how the Canadian government has dealt with its aboriginal peoples. Our claim has attracted international attention. Let me explain.

We, the Nisga'a, were the first aboriginal community to take the government to court to establish the basic principle that aboriginal people were never treated fairly at the time of colonialization - and that we never relinquished ownership of our land.

The deadlocked decision in the Supreme Court of Canada in 1973 - we call it the Calder Case after Nisga'a Chief Frank Calder - was a wake-up call for the Canadian government: It woke the government up to the fact that basic principles of fairness were to be applied to aboriginal people, people who had never given right to the land. Nisga'a land.

The decision from the Supreme Court of Canada led the Liberal government under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and Indian Affairs Minister Jean Chretien to establish a policy stating that those aboriginal people of Canada who did not and have not signed treaties now have the right to negotiate with the government to resolve this long outstanding injustice, the injustice of having something taken from us, something we never gave up.

As international and local attention is focused on our negotiations, I want to pause and take a look back at the rich history and struggle that have led us to where we are today.

Some people think the issues surrounding land claims have only been trumped up in recent times. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Our grievance dates back to our first white contact early in the last century. In 1887, my ancestors travelled to Victoria where they were turned away on the steps of the legislature.

At that time, as anthropologists confirmed, the Nisga'a were a well-organized, well-functioning society with a rich fabric of complex social, political, and cultural pursuits.

We had a strong system of laws which we called Ayyukhl Nisga'a, which was also a moral code and which governed the way we lived. When white explorers and fur traders first arrived, we resisted the occupation and surveying of our lands. We insisted the governments of the day recognize the continuing ownership of our lands.

This instance fit right in with the British government's policy throughout the Empire which directed that no settlements were to intrude upon tribal lands without first negotiating a transfer of ownership of tribal lands to the colonial governments.

At no time did the British government, nor the colonial government, nor the provincial government, ever sign a treaty extinguishing our aboriginal ownership to the land.

From the time of first white contact we insisted that our identity be recognized. In the 1880s there was open talk of rebellion within our lands.

The federal government - far away in Ottawa - heard that our people were rebellious and decided to strike up a Royal Commission of Inquiry to learn more of why our people were so upset. In 1888, we laid out our position to the Commission.

"What we don't like about the Government is their saying this: 'We will give you this much land.' How can they give it when it is our own? We cannot understand it. They have never bought it from us or our grandfathers. They have never fought and conquered our people and taken the land in that way, and yet they now say that they will give us so much land, our own land."

And at a second Royal Commission hearing in 1915 (known as McKenna-McBride), Nisga'a Chief Gideon Minesque said:

"We haven't got any ill feelings in our hearts but we are just waiting for this thing to be settled and we have been waiting for the last five years. We have been living here since time immemorial. It has been handed down in legends from the old people and that is what hurts us very much because the white people have come along and taken this land away from us."

Nothing came of these Royal Commission (like most others since) and our people continued to protest.

In 1913, we hired lawyers in London, England to petition Queen Victoria to seek British intervention against the Canadian government for failing to recognize that we were still the owners of our land.

It is marvellous to recall how our people, living in one of the most isolated locations in North America, had the where-with-all and the faith in the justice system to retain lawyers in England to fight this battle. But they did. And it happened.

From this initiative came the famous Nisga'a Petition of 1913 that demanded the British government's intervention on our behalf.

But even then, my ancestors did not receive the justice they sought.

Our land claims committee, delegation after delegation, pressed Victoria and Ottawa, seeking justice. Time after time we were turned back.

Our patience ran out in the mid-1960s. I well remember, as a young man, being excited about the momentous decision by our Chiefs to take our case to court. No aboriginal group in the British Commonwealth had gone this route in this century.

As I said previously, the Supreme Court of Canada rendered a deadlocked decision in 1973 which changed the course of history. Soon, the government of Canada announced it was prepared to sit down to negotiate our claim, and in 1991 the Social Credit government of B.C. joined the negotiations.

Since that day, it has been frustrating our people to see settlement after settlement being arrived at with the aboriginal people of James Bay, the Inuit of the Northeastern Arctic, the Dene of the Northwest Territories, the Yukon Indians, and the Alaska aboriginal community.

Meanwhile, we wait. As we have been waiting for more than 100 years.

We have been patient, knowing that justice was on our side and that our day would come. Our children will tell you today that the Nisga'a must negotiate a just and honorable Treaty. It is not a problem that will go away.

We are not a violent people. We have a deep respect for the rule of law. You have not seen us barricading roads, you have not seen us in shoot-outs with the police.

But generations of Nisga'a men and women have grown old at the negotiating table while our young people grow more insistent on becoming equal partners in the Canadian community.

We want it said at the end of the day that we have approached these negotiations in an honourable and trusting way.

The Agreement In Principle we signed in 1996 is real - a fact of life. And soon, we hope to announce a final Treaty.

The settlement of our claim is a monumental achievement for our tribe and for Canadian society.

The agreement proves that reasonable people can sit down and settle historical wrongs. It proves that modern society can review the mistakes of the past and ensure that minorities are treated fairly. It will allow us to go forward, as you graduates go forth today, equipped with the dignity and confidence that we can make a critical contribution to Canadian society.

There will be detractors to our settlement.

Those who say our interests should be ignored. There will be those that say Canada and B.C. are "giving" us too much. And I put quotation marks around the word "giving."

There will be others, particularly within the aboriginal community, who say we settled for too little.

Both are wrong.

We have reached a hard-fought settlement that has seen major compromises made by all three parties. It is the price we pay for the justice we have painstakingly sought.

Finally, we will have the tools to participate in the mainstream of Canadian society.

Sometimes, when we hear words like this, it sounds like rhetoric. Let me tell you what it means to me. I look to the future. We can not change events in the past. But we can make certain these mistakes will not be repeated in the future.

Our Treaty will be in the best economic interest of the entire province. A fairly and honorably-reached Nisga'a Treaty will send an important economic message to boardrooms around the world.

Consider some remarks by Milton Wong, CEO of M. K. Wong and Associates Ltd. and vice-president of the Hongkong Bank of Canada - a very powerful and influential business leader. A man who was born and lives in Vancouver.

Mr. Wong is urging Canada and British Columbia to sign a Nisga'a Treaty, and - let me quote here - "that will establish the social, political and economic certainty to encourage investment in British Columbia and therefore be of enormous help to the business communities across this province."

He goes on to say that:

"In the global marketplace, international companies who may wish to invest in B.C. are well aware of, and seriously concerned about, the economic uncertainty that surrounds the province as a result of unresolved land claims."

Mr. Wong knows all about economic certainty. As the manager of more than two billion dollars in assets, he is aware his clients will not invest their money if there is a good chance that, due to political instability, they may lose it.

His warning supports an earlier government study that found B.C. had lost an estimated one billion dollars in investment due to unsettled land claims, which have triggered road blockades, armed stand-offs and court battles across the province.

Here, then, is a practical reason that you should join us in urging B.C. and Canada to sign the Nisga'a Treaty now.

Consider for a moment the current economic problems in B.C.'s northwest corridor. A Nisga'a Treaty will be a major part of the solution.

Not only will a Nisga'a Treaty provide economic certainty, it will, over the long term, save taxpayers' money.

Critics who think the Nisga'a Treaty is generous should check the ongoing costs of leaving land claims unsettled.

According to the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (another one!), the total cost of maintaining the status quo - under the universally despised and obsolete Indian Act - is a staggering 7.5 billion dollars a year. This cost will rise to more than 11 billion dollars a year over the next two decades.

Considering the benefits of signing a Nisga'a Treaty, the real mystery is why Ottawa and Victoria have been dragging their heels for all these many years, all these generations.

Surely we would be better off if the Nisga'a could pay our own way as other Canadians are allowed to do.

A Nisga'a Treaty promises a bright future for everyone - aboriginal and non-aboriginal. It's the future I can see in the faces of the graduates here today.

But if past behavior predicts the future, it is doubtful that groups like the Citizen's Voice (What citizens? What voice?) will pay much attention to the legal, moral and historical imperatives for signing a Nisga' a Treaty.

This little and misinformed group is fanning the fires of ignorance and prejudice for its own purposes. Its call for a referendum on our treaty is simply a smoke screen to put an end to all treaty making.

In weeks to come, these naysayers may try to solicit your support and oppose our settlement. With all my heart, I urge you to reject their scheming.

With all my soul, I urge you to take the time to learn about our Treaty; about our Treaty making. Phone our office and we'll send you a Fact Book in the mail; take a virtual tour of our Nass homeland on the Internet. Learn about us. Take the hand we offer to you in friendship.

Meanwhile, I call upon Premier Clark to provide direction to his provincial negotiators. If negotiations are to conclude in a timely fashion, decisions on key issues must be made now.

On behalf of the entire Nisga'a Nation, I ask for your support. Historical achievements don't come easily. As the Nisga'a who began this process so long ago once hoped, and as we the Nisga'a today can say: Our canoe has finally landed. Support us - and join in the celebration.

Thank you.