Begin forwarded message:

From: Norman Paterson <normanreedpaterson@gmail.com>

Subject: Re: EPISODE 387 THE PERPLEXING CASE OF THE LUBICON CREE: THE FORGOTTEN TRIBE

Date: July 13, 2021 at 9:15:47 AM EDT

To: ALAN SKEOCH <alan.skeoch@rogers.com>

A very interesting story. Top marks to Rachel Notley.

Norm

On Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 9:18 PM ALAN SKEOCH, <alan.skeoch@rogers.com> wrote:

EPISODE 387   THE PERPLEXING CASE OF THE LUBICON CREE: THE FORGOTTEN TRIBE

alan skeoch

July 2021

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Chief Bernard Ominayak of Lubicon Cree…attempt to negotiate land claim in 1998…his sister Rose made speech to United Nations officials. Bernard in suit, unsure 

of other person

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Cree men as seen in 1898…Lubicon cree Never signed Treaty #8

One nice result of researching a book is that nice people surface now and then to offer help.

That’s what happened with the Lubicon Cree…. became Chapter 12 of YOUR HOME ON NATIVE LAND.

Let me quote part of the chapter written in 2008.  Remember the book is a dialogue between a young Mississauga First

Nations boy and his wise grandmother from the New Credit Reserve in Ontario.  The story may make you cry.

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CHAPTER 12

QUESTION: “Have you ever heard of a cross-cut saw?”

“Of course! What has that to do with land claims?”

“Keep the saw blade in mind, back and forth. Cutting.’

“There is a tribe in Northern Alberta called the Lubicon Cree.  When Treaty

Number 8 was signed in 1898 the officials did not know this tribe existed.

They were missed because the were remote.  They were not found until

1939 when two government men reached them.

Since they had not signed a treaty, they still had rights to their land…if they

could prove they were native people.  There were only 154 of them, which a

government official reduced to 30…too small a number to merit a reserve.

Problem solved.  Right?”

“Doesn’t sound right to me. Why make a big deal ? Why not recognize the Lubicon

and set up a reserve…get a new agreement?”

“The federal and provincial government just wanted to get rid of the problem

because there was oil on the land where the Lubicon live. Lots of it.

The Alberta government passed a law banning the Lubicon from their land.

One hundred oil companies came in, cut road, set up drills…in five years 

there were 400 oil wells pumping crude oil.  Then a huge Japanese pulp and 

paper mill was built consuming millions of trees each year.”

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QUESTION:“Who owns the oilfield? Who owns the trees?”

“Right! One young Lubicon, Bernard Ominayak decided to fight the paper war.

It is not easy for one man…or a small group of Native people…to take on 

governments and oil companies.   He was pushed back and forth like

that cross-cut saw we talked about.  No agreement.  Nothing happened.  His

leadership was badmouthed and undercut.

“His people were split.  depressed.  No clear title to their homes.  Not sure

they were even Natives.  Drinking, suicides…a downward track for a depressed

people.”

QUESTION: “What could they do?  Nothing!”

“Years passed.  Decades passed.  No settlement.  Finally in 1998, they took

their case to the United Nations and the World Council of Churches.”

QUESTION: “Did they win?”

“I won’t tell you just yet, but picture this. A big room…there are a lot of important

United Nations representatives in the room. Chief Ominayak speaks:

    ‘I Would like Rose Ominayak to speak for my people.’

Rose is shy and afraid.  She will not look at the officials but she begins to

read her statement.   There is an electric silence in the room as she

speaks softly .. barely audible at first:

ROSE OMINAYAK: “My name is Rose Ominayak. I am Lubicon Cree. 

We, the Lubicon Lake Naton, are tired.  We are frustrated and angry. We feel

we cannot wait another minute to have our land claim settled.  Fifty years is

too long.  In those 50 years, we have watched our land and lives be destroyed

by Canadian governments and corporations.   Our children are sick from

drinking water that oil has spilled in.  They are sick from breathing the poisoned

and polluted air the pulp mill has made.  We are sick from eating animals, animals

that arse sick from disease from poisoned plants and water.  Our children have

nothing.  they cannot breathe – even that has been taken.  Their culture, the bush life,

has been destroyed by development. When we were young, we lived in the bush.

It was a good life. Now we have no trap lines, nothing to hunt. There are no jobs,

no money to live a decent life.  We see ourselves, our men and our children falling

into despair, hopelessness, less self-esteem and drinking.  Families are broken

like never before.  Drinking and violence rise as our spirits fall.

ROSE CONTINUES

“We live our lives in constant danger…we have been afraid since the blockade

(the Lubicon people blockaded roads for a time) …afraid to go to certain places in 

town.  Our sons have been beaten by white men when they say they are Lubicon.

We are even afraid to say what we are!  The roads are dusty and dangerous to travel.

The logging and oil trucks run us off sometimes…we are not even safe in the bush.

We are afraid to go into the bush because the white sports hunters shoot at 

anything that moves.”

ROSE CONTINUES

“We ask why?  Why us? What have we don to deserve such treatment?  Why can’t 

the government settle with the Lubicon?  We are not dogs, but we are treated like dogs.

We are people just like you.  We are equal.  We have every right to be here.”

QUESTION: “S0 what happened to the Lubicon Cree?”

“Do you want the short answer or the long answer?”’

“The short answer.”

“Both answer are the same.  Nothing happened.     By 2007, not a thing had changed.

Canada was condemned for its treatment of the Lubicon.  Some other tricks

were used to break their spirit, which partially worked.   The blockade was lifted and 

the trucks continued but the Lubicon did not get their reserve or payment for oil

and lumber.  The Six Nations people in Ontario protested in sympathy as did the

Mohawks in Montreal….stopped traffic and handed out pamphlets but noting was

achieved.  it is a sad case.”

QUESTION: Does no one care outside of our First Nations people?”

“There are people who care.  Ron Kaplansky and Liz White in Toronto formed

the Lubicon Legal Defence Fund to help the Lubicon people pay for their legal

bills and help the children.  They sent more than $170,000 over eight years.

No change had happened.  “The government has beat this tribe so much,” stated

Kaplansky in 2006, “I don’t think they have any fight left…” The defence fund has

now closed down and there is still no settlement.

QUESTION:  “What exactly do the Lubicon want?”

“They want $50 million to create a reserve of 10,000 square kilometres of land around

Little Buffalo….and also $120 million as compensation for the oil, gas and timber

taken from the land.”

QUESTION:  “That sounds like a big demand for 500 people.?”

“Well, 500 people, 50,000 people or two people: if it’s their land it’s their land.

And the oil, gas and forest resources taken off it represents a huge sum.”

(The situation as of 2008)

POST SCRIPT:  2011 OIL SPILL  then finally  2018 SETTLEMENT OF LAND CLAIM

On April 29, 2011, a rupture in the Rainbow Pipeline resulted in a spill of about 4.5 million litres of oil in our territory – one of the biggest oil spills in Alberta’s history. When the pipeline broke, oil went down the corridor and into the forest, but the majority of it was soaked up into the muskeg, which is like peatland moss and takes thousands of years to be generated. The muskeg is not an isolated system. It’s not “stagnant water,” as the government claims. It’s actually a living, breathing ecosystem that supports life and is connected to all the water in the region.

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Jimmy Jeong/Greenpeace

On the first day of the spill, the school was not notified. When students started to feel sick, they were evacuated from the school under the assumption that it was a propane leak. When they got outside into the field, they realized that the problem was extended throughout the community.

During the first week of the spill, community members experienced physical symptoms: their eyes burned, they had headaches, they felt nauseous. We were told that air quality was not a problem, even though Alberta Environment didn’t actually come into the community until six days after the spill. This is problematic since a government granting permits for this type of development, often without the consent of the people, has an obligation to take care of those whom they are directly putting at risk. A lot of people were left wondering what they should do, and if pregnant women and small children should even be in the community.

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A Significant Human Rights Event for the Lubicon People

JANUARY 3, 2019 BY LINDA MCKAY-PANOS

Reading Time: 4 minutes

//alanskeoch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/4712e1b0a24aa2a338632325c7a85843-1.jpeg1CC97DB7-CFDD-4894-9EB9-865C05C76925@phub.net.cable.rogers.com” class=””>In 1899, Treaty 8 was negotiated with several First Nations groups in Northern Alberta—North East Saskatchewan, Southwest parts of the Northwest Territories and later Eastern British Columbia—resulting in land surrender to the Crown. However, members of the Lubicon Lake Band were left out of the negotiations. This launched several decades of claims and disputes between Lubicon people and the federal and provincial governments. While the Lubicons continued to live in their traditional ways, the province of Alberta leased areas of the disputed lands for oil and gas development and provided permits for harvesting lumber using clear cut methods. These activities had negative impacts on the Lubicon people. The dispute became known across Canada and the world when Amnesty International and the United Nations became involved.

The situation faced by the Lubicon Cree was one of the longest unresolved human rights issues in Alberta. While a reserve was promised to the Lubicon people in 1939, 40 years after Treaty 8 was negotiated, it was never established. The subject of the dispute was 10,000 square kilometers of oil-rich forested land, which is north of Lesser Slave Lake and east of the Peace River. Traditionally, the Lubicon Cree lived almost entirely off the land. Considerable oil extraction, which started in the 1970s in the region, together with extensive logging, had significant reported impacts on the health, way of life, and culture of the Lubicon Cree. Yet, they never consented to this development on traditional lands for which they claimed to have never surrendered their rights.

Since about 1985, there were several attempts at negotiations with the federal and provincial governments regarding Lubicon land rights, but these talks all broke down. Hopes for a solution were raised in 1990 when the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) concluded that this situation endangered the way of life and culture of the Lubicon Cree. Further, the Committee said that “so long as they continue”, the threats to the Lubicon way of life are a violation of the Lubicon’s fundamental human rights (United Nations Human Rights Committee Communication No. 167/1984: Canada 10/05/90 CCPR/C/38/D/167/1984. Ominayak and the Lubicon Lake Band v Canada.) The UNHRC was assured by the Canadian government that it was negotiating a settlement that would respect the rights of the Lubicon Cree. Despite this, a settlement was not reached at that time.

The situation faced by the Lubicon Cree was one of the longest unresolved human rights issues in Alberta. While a reserve was promised to the Lubicon people in 1939, 40 years after Treaty 8 was negotiated, it was never established.The United Nations relied upon Canada’s desire to maintain its international reputation as a great respecter of human rights. However, bringing the Lubicon Cree situation to the attention of the international community in 1990 did not seem to produce the desired results.

The Lubicon Cree, however, did not let the initial disappointment deter them and approached the UNHRC again in 2003 and 2006. As noted by Alphonse Ominayak, Lubicon band counsellor, “They have to deal with this as soon as possible so we can get on with our lives before everything is totally destroyed. People are hoping the government will live up to its responsibilities” (Cotter).

The Lubicon people were able to negotiate agreements with two private oil and gas firms, giving the band a veto over some oil and gas drilling on the claimed land. The Lubicon claimed that they were able to negotiate these agreements despite the Alberta government’s urging the firms not to negotiate with the band (John Cotter, “UN Wants Ottawa to resume talks with Alta’s Lubicon band” 2 November 2005 [Cotter]).

On November 2, 2005, the UNHRC responded to the representations of a delegation from the Lubicon Cree, who had appeared before it in Geneva on October 17, 2005, to ask for further comment on the situation. In its report, the UNHRC said: “The Committee is concerned that land-claim negotiations between the Government of Canada and the Lubicon Lake band are currently at an impasse…. The state party should make every effort to resume negotiations. It should consult with the band before granting licences for economic exploitation of the disputed land” (United Nations Human Rights Committee, Considerations of Reports Considered Under Article 40, Canada 2005: CCPR/C/CAN/CO/5). These are quite strong statements which raised the hopes of the Lubicon Cree that the negotiations would resume and result in an appropriate settlement.

In late October, 2018, a historic land claim agreement was signed between Chief Billy Joe Laboucan, Premier Rachel Notley and Federal-Crown Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett. The agreement sets aside 246 square kilometers of land in the area of Little Buffalo. It also provides $113 million compensation from both provincial and federal levels of government. See: CBC News “Alberta Band settles long-standing land claim for $113 million and swath of land”[CBC News]. The enormity of this event seems to have been largely overlooked as many Canadians seem to be mesmerized with what is going on south of the border.

While the current settlement can never address the terrible living conditions suffered by the Lubicon Cree for decades, the Lubicon people are hopeful that it will improve the lives of future generations (CBC News). This significant human rights event was a long time coming but should be celebrated nevertheless.