June 18, 1998
The Toronto Star
By Naomi Klein
It is clear that Kevin Thomas can't quite
believe his eyes.
He is holding a map, which arrived by fax
from forestry giant Daishowa just moments
ago. The map is of a 10,000 square
kilometre area in northern Alberta
representing territory claimed by the
Lubicon Cree. The area is at the centre of
a fierce land-claim dispute for which the
federal government has failed to negotiate
a settlement in 65 years.
Attached to the map is a letter from the
president of Daishowa pledging ``not to
harvest or purchase timber'' in the
contested area until the land claim is
resolved. This is what Thomas and his
colleagues in Friends of the Lubicon have
been demanding for seven years. They got
it last week.
Up until then, Daishowa had insisted on
its right to log the area based on an
agreement it had with the government of
Alberta, though it did put its operations
on hold. The Lubicon argued that the
province had no right to auction off
natural resources which were not its to
sell.
In 1991, the Friends called for a boycott
of Daishowa products. Since Daishowa
doesn't sell directly to the public but
rather supplies paper goods to large
companies, the Friends couldn't take its
case directly to the people. Instead, it
traced Daishowa's paper bags to several
high-profile buyers, including Pizza Pizza
and Woolworth's. Unlike Daishowa, brand
image and customer relations are of
central importance to these companies.
Daishowa took the Friends to court,
claiming the boycott was unlawful and had
cost it $14 million in lost revenue. But
on April 14, an Ontario Court judge ruled
in favour of the activists. After the
ruling, the Friends vowed to bring back
the boycott with renewed force, unless
Daishowa pledged to stay off the disputed
land, which brings us back to the fax.
The Lubicon's victory should serve as a
warning to all other faceless
resource-based corporations which have
been able to conduct their operations in
relative secrecy. Mines and clear-cutting
programs may attract the ire of
environmentalists and Native bands, but we
all know how unresponsive logging and
mining giants can be to those concerns -
even when people are literally lying down
in front of their bulldozers.
And why should the companies care? They
deal exclusively with governments and
corporate clients which transform raw
resources into consumer goods. Since they
don't sell to the public, they don't have
to worry about their public image - which
is precisely why violent clashes in remote
areas of the wilderness are so common.
Up until now, it's been the big brand
names which have had to worry about
consumer campaigns. Nike has been scarred
by sweatshop scandals and Shell oil -
which stamps its name on the commodity it
extracts - continues to face international
outrage over the environmental and human
rights abuses its drilling has caused on
Ogoni land in Nigeria.
The timing of the Lubicon's breakthrough
couldn't be better. Every week there are
more horrifying reports about Canadian
mining companies utterly failing to
respect the heath, safety and sovereignty
of peoples around the world - from the
Philippines, to Spain, to Indonesia to
Kyrgyzstan to our own Voisey's Bay.
The Friends of the Lubicon's boycott
demonstrates that even natural resource
companies will not be exempt from the
mounting calls for corporate
accountability. Investigative activists
can track their resources' progression
through the economy until the point where
they turn into consumer goods and public
pressure can be applied. This point may be
when nickel turns into batteries, old
growth wood into furniture, gold into
jewelry - the possibilities are limitless.
All along, Daishowa has claimed it was
being unfairly targeted because the
dispute was between the band and
government. In many ways, that is
absolutely true. Since the Lubicon applied
for a land settlement in 1933, the federal
government - though conceding to the
band's right to a reserve - has refused to
negotiate in good faith. In the meantime,
resource extraction has caused massive
damage to the ecosystem and the Lubicon
way of life.
The targeting of a corporation was an act
of desperation. ``The government was never
going to settle so long as the Lubicon
people were the only ones suffering - the
only ones unable to carry on with business
as usual,'' says Thomas.
Now that Daishowa's multi-million-dollar
operations in the area are directly linked
to a resolution of the land claim, the
Lubicon have some very influential company
in their long wait.
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Naomi Klein's column appears on Thursdays.