Friends of the Lubicon
PO Box 444 Stn D,
Etobicoke ON M9A 4X4
Tel: (416) 763-7500
Email: fol (at) tao (dot) ca
www.lubicon.ca
May 25, 2006
When the United Nations strongly urged Canada to return to negotiations with the Lubicon Nation earlier this week, Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice responded by insisting that the Lubicons are to blame for the lack of a federal mandate to negotiate.
A response from Chief Ominayak is attached below, along with the original statements from Mr. Prentice.
MAY 24, 2006
Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice suggested yesterday that the Lubicon people are to blame for his government’s failure to return to the negotiating table. Mr. Prentice said that the settlement offers made by the federal government were considered "fair and reasonable" by the United Nations. He said that "other treaty land entitlement" claims have been settled in Alberta during the time the Lubicon dispute has remained unresolved. He suggested that Lubicon demands are too high. And he claimed that the mandate of federal negotiators is "fair" and "workable".
All of these remarks are untrue. Either Mr. Prentice is misinformed or he is deliberately misleading the Canadian public.
Mr. Prentice was responding to a third ruling by the United Nations urging Canada to resume negotiations with the Lubicon. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has twice condemned Canada for violating the human rights of the Lubicon people. Two days ago, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights issued a third ruling on the case echoing the previous decisions.
Mr. Prentice claims that "the position that the government of Canada has put on the table was described in a previous United Nations report as a fair and reasonable position." In fact the 1990 UN Human Rights Committee decision to which Mr. Prentice is referring says no such thing. The UNHRC concluded that "historical inequities … and certain more recent developments threaten the way of life and culture of the Lubicon Lake Band". The UNHRC ruled that "so long as they continue" these threats are a violation of our fundamental human rights under Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Taking at face value Canadian assurances that Canada was seeking a negotiated settlement with the Lubicons that would respect Lubicon rights -- as supposedly evidenced by an offer which Canadian representatives did not tell the UNHRC had been presented to the Lubicons on a "take-it-or-leave-it" basis -- the UNHRC also found that Canada "proposes to rectify the situation with a remedy that the Committee deems appropriate within the meaning of article 2 of the Covenant".
Commenting on the relationship between the finding holding Canada in violation of the Covenant so long as the situation continues, and the finding that Canada proposes a remedy that the Committee finds appropriate, a Committee official was quoted in the Canadian media as saying the Committee is "telling both sides to continue negotiating in good faith (underlining added)".
Mr. Prentice seeks to characterize this part of the Committee’s decision as endorsing Canada’s negotiating position rather than urging Canada to seek a negotiated settlement , but the fact that two subsequent UN rulings have urged Canada to return to the table to negotiate further clearly indicates that the United Nations does not accept Canada’s earlier offers as either "fair" or "adequate".
Mr. Prentice says that "in the time the Lubicon negotiations have been going on, the government of Canada and the government of Alberta have settled nine other treaty land entitlement cases in the Treaty 8 boundaries."
In fact the Lubicon dispute is not a treaty land entitlement case. A treaty land entitlement dispute involves lands which should have been provided under mutually-agreed treaty terms but for one reason or another were not. The Lubicon people have never signed a treaty with Canada and therefore retain unextinguished aboriginal title to our entire Traditional Territory. Under Canadian law, Canada must negotiate a treaty with the aboriginal owners of a geographical area before assuming jurisdiction. Canada has never done that with our people.
Mr. Prentice says "the problem with the Lubicon has been the inability of the government of Canada and government of Alberta to meet the expectations that the Lubicon negotiators have set forth."
Since the onset of oil and gas exploitation in our Traditional Territory, over $13 billion in oil and gas resources have been taken from our lands. These massive resource exploitation activities have devastated the ecology of our traditional Territory and decimated the traditional Lubicon hunting, trapping and gathering economy and way of life. Ninety per cent of our people have been forced onto subsistence welfare in order to survive. We suffer serious health problems related to this resource exploitation activity including cancers of all kinds; a tuberculosis epidemic that affected a third of our population; reproduction problems which resulted in 19 stillbirths out of 21 pregnancies in an 18 month period; near-epidemic asthma and other respiratory problems, and skin rashes among our young people so severe as to cause permanent scarring. In the midst of multi-billion dollar resource exploitation of natural resources from our unceded traditional Territory, the Lubicon people face severe economic deprivation and live in third world housing conditions with as many as three or four generations living in a small 900 square foot bungalow with no running water and no indoor toilet facilities.
In fact, in exchange for rights to valuable Lubicon lands and resources which Canada and Alberta in effect seek to expropriate, the Lubicon people have asked for money to rebuild our shattered society and provide our people with basic services like a small health centre and running water, replace our once-self-sufficient traditional economy with a hopefully viable mixed economy, receive financial compensation for a tiny fraction of the value of the resources taken from our Traditional Territory without legal right, and recognition of our right to govern ourselves as we always have.
Mr. Prentice says that "as of late the challenge of the Lubicon has been to the actual mandate of the federal negotiator and we’re satisfied it’s a fair mandate and it’s workable."
In fact Canada has refused to discuss anything other than agreement to talk about self-government post-settlement of Lubicon land rights, while at the same time demanding that as part of the current settlement the Lubicon Nation must sign legal releases of the very aboriginal rights to be negotiated. More ominously, since it raises serious questions about whether Canada is prepared to engage in good faith negotiations with Aboriginal people, the Lubicon Lake people have obtained a copy of secret guidelines drafted by Canadian Department of Justice lawyers instructing federal negotiators how to negotiate aboriginal self-government in bad faith.
With regard to the issue of financial compensation, federal negotiators tell us that they have exhausted their official mandate and therefore have no ability to negotiate financial compensation for the over $13 billion in estimated revenues from oil and gas extracted from unceded Traditional Lubicon Territory since 1979. Federal negotiators even told us that the amount of money available for financial compensation under their mandate is limited because they spent part of the money earmarked for a potential settlement buying out interests on our unceded land illicitly sold to resource companies by the Province against our wishes. In other words, potential Lubicon compensation money was instead given to the oil and gas companies whose disruptive activities in our Traditional Territory gave rise to the very need for financial compensation.
When he sat in opposition, Mr. Prentice appeared to understand the Lubicon issue much more clearly than he does now. Perhaps that’s because at the time he didn’t have Department officials providing him with self-serving briefings attempting to defend, justify and rationalize the bad advice they had given to his predecessors.
In Opposition, Mr. Prentice wrote to then-Indian Affairs Minister Andy Scott, saying "I call upon you and your colleagues to begin immediate negotiations towards a settlement of Lubicon land rights, and to conduct a comprehensive environmental assessment of proposed oil sands development projects."
All of the objections and issues Mr. Prentice raised yesterday were raised by Liberal Indian Affairs Ministers, on the advice of the same bureaucrats, at the time Mr. Prentice made that statement. Nothing has changed since that time except Mr. Prentice’s vantage point in the House of Commons.
Bernard Ominayak
Chief, Lubicon Lake Indian Nation
Canadian Press wire story
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Lubicons being treated fairly despite lack of progress: Jim Prentice
Bill Graveland
Canadian Press
CALGARY (CP) - Canada's Indian affairs minister is shrugging off a strongly worded message from the United Nations about resuming negotiations with Alberta's Lubicon Cree.
"Let's be clear about this. The Canadian government and the Alberta government have been at the table on the Lubicon negotiation for many years," Jim Prentice said Tuesday.
"We have continued to put fair and reasonable positions on the table. In fact, the position that the government of Canada has put on the table was described in a previous United Nations report as a fair and reasonable position," he added.
The UN Committee on economic, social and cultural rights, in its report released late last week, "strongly recommends" Canada resume talks with the aboriginal band in order to reach a solution to its claims against the government.
The report also "strongly" recommends the federal government "conduct effective consultation" with the band prior to granting licences for economic purposes on disputed land.
The committee had called Canadian representatives to Geneva earlier this month to answer to Ottawa's compliance with an international treaty dealing with key social, economic and cultural rights.
The UN committee's recommendations state that any deal Canada reaches with the Lubicon should not jeopardize any of those rights.
But Prentice said the governments have made headway with several native bands during the time that the decades-old negotiations with the Lubicons have taken place.
"Although the Lubicon file is a difficult one, in the time the Lubicon negotiations have been going on, the government of Canada and the government of Alberta have settled nine other treaty land entitlement cases in the Treaty 8 boundaries," Prentice said.
The Lubicon Cree were missed when a federal commission negotiated Treaty 8 in Alberta in 1899. They were largely ignored until the land they inhabit - and never surrendered via the treaty - became valuable for its oil, gas and forest resources.
The federal government has refused to recognize the Lubicon claim of an inherent right to self government. Ottawa says the northern Alberta band has to settle its 67-year-old land claim first.
The Lubicon demands are just too high, according to Prentice.
"The problem with the Lubicon has been the inability of the government of Canada and government of Alberta to meet the expectations that the Lubicon negotiators have set forth," said Prentice.
"We've been unable to achieve an agreement and as of late the challenge of the Lubicon has been to the actual mandate of the federal negotiator and we're satisfied it's a fair mandate and it's workable."
In earlier talks, the band demanded $50 million to establish a reserve on 10,000 square kilometres of land it claims around Little Buffalo, Alta. It also wanted $120 million in compensation for energy and forestry development that have already taken place on the land.
A Lubicon spokesman said although similar recommendations have been handed down by other UN committees, it is rare for the organization to use the word "strongly" in its conclusions.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
1. If you are a Canadian resident, please join the national Lubicon petition campaign. Copies of the petition and downloadable information you can hand out to friends, co-workers and others is available here.
2. Write to the Canadian government to urge them to negotiate a settlement with the Lubicon people. Details and addresses can be found here.
3. forward this email to your friends and colleagues.
fol-request at masses.tao.ca