In 1977, leaders of the Gitksan Nation from northern British Columbia walked into the offices of Vancouver lawyer Peter Grant and retained him to help negotiate a treaty with the federal government.

Twenty-five years later -- despite battling up to the Supreme Court of Canada -- they still have no treaty, nor has the federal government even agreed to enter talks.

Who's to blame? Not the Gitksan, Mr. Grant insists; they've been willing to settle on various points. "It's the federal government that isn't willing to move."

Nonetheless, Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Robert Nault has threatened to walk away from as many as 30 stalled native claims and self-government negotiations, blaming the other side of the table -- especially lawyers.

"I am not in the business of building an industry for lawyers and consultants," he told Globe and Mail reporter Kim Lunman.

No one knows exactly how many lawyers are involved in Mr. Nault's industry, as Indian Affairs cannot provide statistics on lawyers representing Ottawa.

Gina Wilson, executive adviser for claims and Indian government, says lawyers are the exclusive purview of the Department of Justice. Justice, however, says it doesn't keep a running tally.

Ms. Wilson did say, however, that last year Indian and Northern Affairs Canada paid $6-million to hire 35 chief negotiators on contract. Their rates vary from $100 to $255 an hour. That averages out to more than $171,400 each.

Also, she says, the federal government to date has made loans to 100 native groups to cover the costs of all forms of negotiations. Currently $350-million in face value plus another $50-million in interest is outstanding.

Neither the Canadian Bar Association nor any native group tracks the numbers of lawyers involved. While the CBA has 750 lawyers in its national aboriginal law section, that can be taken only as lawyers expressing an interest in aboriginal law, the CBA says. Lawyers who do represent native communities say Mr. Nault's words are more spin than substance. First, they say, in their experience government lawyers from both federal and provincial levels almost always outnumber those representing native interests, no matter what the issue. Second, they add, the process is so stacked against native claims -- by federal design -- that delay has become one of the few negotiating tools remaining in native hands.

Land claims and treaty rights are only part of the picture. Lawyers are also increasingly retained to represent native communities in claims against native schools. Mr. Grant says he has been told that the Vancouver office of the Department of Justice has doubled in the past two years just to deal with native schools' claims.

"My experience in residential school claims tells me that the Department of Justice has this great public relations face, but I believe its lawyers have orders to grind down native claimants," says Mr. Grant, who is now the Vancouver-based partner in the firm of Hutchins Soroka & Grant, which represents aboriginal groups in a broad range of claims. "I believe they have orders to force settlements as low as possible."

That attitude is reflected in all negotiations with Indian Affairs, native groups contend.

"There is no question the Department of Justice controls the process," says Roger Jones, legal counsel for the Assembly of First Nations, the Ottawa-based political voice for more than 600 bands. "The federal government sets the policies. It says how to get started, how to go about it and even decides how lawyers representing native claims get paid and when."

Indian Affairs says it is sensitive to the need to speed the claims process.. Mr. Nault has reintroduced Bill C-6, the Specific Claims Resolution Act, with the goals of saving money for both sides, obviating the need to go to court and speeding resolution.

But despite these efforts, many groups are frustrated with the negotiating process.

"Everything is stacked against native claimants," says Allan Brabant, whose Regina-based firm, Griffin Toews Maddigan & Brabant, has been handling native claims since the mid-1970s. Mr. Brabant is, himself, a member of the Little Black Bear band. Currently he has four land claims in progress, and more than 90 per cent of Mr. Brabant's own practice involves aboriginal clients. "Take how the native side gets federal money to pay lawyers as an example," he says. "None is available until the claim is validated by Ottawa. It is a real Catch-22."

Lawyers for native groups also say a major stumbling block is often one of attitude: Though the federal government is obliged to protect native interests, it frequently doesn't do so unless forced to by the courts.

"The problem there is that the courts really don't want to get involved," says Mr. Jones of the Assembly of First Nations. "They have held that these are matters better suited to negotiation. In a court case one side wins and one side loses. That is not what native claims are supposed to be about. They are supposed to reflect what is fair to both sides."

From Mr. Brabant's viewpoint, the current system is a case where justice delayed is justice denied. "The system simply forces native bands into long, drawn-out, often unfair negotiations."