The NDP said Tuesday it’s an “open secret” the government will appeal the Peel watershed court decision, a possibility the cabinet has not officially settled on.

The Opposition insisted the government’s “misguided ideology would allow nothing else.”

The NDP speculated an announcement to appeal this month’s Yukon Supreme Court ruling will come down over the holidays “to avoid the public eye.

“It appears that this government is going to appeal the decision, even though they must realize how strongly opposed Yukoners are to its unilateral plan,” NDP Leader Liz Hanson said in the house.

“It is also clear that the government is waiting until the middle of a holiday season to appeal the decision, in the hope that the decision will fly under the radar.”

“We haven’t ruled out any option, contrary to what the member opposite is alluding to,” said Energy, Mines and Resources Minister Scott Kent.

“This is a very complicated decision and it will have far-reaching effects, as I mentioned, not only on future land use plans and how the government carries out that process, but also on the future economic status of the Yukon.”

Hanson shot back: “A sensible government would look at the Peel decision and realize that they should stop working against Yukon First Nation governments, against Yukon citizens and against the law, and accept the final recommended plan.”

Kent retorted: “It may come as a surprise to the leader of the Official Opposition, but there are those Yukoners who want those economic opportunities in the resource extraction industry.

“We also have to consider what their feelings are when we are making this decision,” he said.

The government has until Jan. 2 to file an appeal.

The back-and-forth over the Peel’s potentially litigious future occurred in the legislature hours before an evening celebration at the Kwanlin Dun Cultural Centre of Justice Ron Veale’s decision.

He ruled on Dec. 2 that the Peel watershed land use plan “does not enhance the goal of reconciliation and is inconsistent with the honour and integrity of the Crown.”

Veale stressed “a large and liberal interpretation” of the Umbrella Final Agreement and the consultation process it prescribes.

The Peel land use plan, which emerged out of that process, was unveiled by the government last January. It opened 71 per cent of the New Brunswick-sized region to resource development, mineral staking and industrial roads.

Two First Nations — the First Nation of Na-cho Nyak Dun and the Tr’ondek Hwech’in First Nation — as well as a pair of environmental groups — the Yukon Conservation Society and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society Yukon — sued the government over the plan in January 2014.

Following a four-day trial last July, Veale sided almost entirely with the plaintiffs. He concluded the government violated the land use planning process laid out in the UFA during talks over the future of the pristine expanse.

The process will now return to the final round of consultation with First Nations and the public.

The government will be limited to the modifications it proposed at an early stage of the dialogue, but the question of the amount of land protected — now fixed at 80 per cent — and the question of access are off limits.

“We’re very pleased at this outcome,” Tom Berger, the pioneering aboriginal rights lawyer and head counsel to the plaintiffs, told the Star following the decision’s release.

“It is, of course, in keeping with the path the Supreme Court of Canada has laid out for dealing with these cases. And the result is, of course, that the land use planning process in the Yukon, which is community-based and collaborative, has been vindicated.

“The government can’t simply at the last minute, after years of work, years of hearings, trash the commission’s report and go ahead with its own plan,” said Berger, who also headed the famous Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry in the mid-1970s.

“I think it’s a victory for all Yukoners, and it’s a victory for legal process. Legal process isn’t just a technical thing; it’s a means by which land use planning in the Yukon is to involve.”