September 1, 1999

What follows is a letter from Lubicon Lake Indian Nation Chief Bernard Ominayak to Alberta Premier Ralph Klein regarding the pending timber sales in Lubicon traditional territory.

Friends of the Lubicon

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August 25, 1999

Ralph Klein
Premier of Alberta
Room 307 Legislature Building
Edmonton, AB T5K 2B6

Dear Mr. Klein;

When Daishowa was first granted permits to clear-cut Lubicon traditional territory, senior Alberta officials assured Daishowa that Lubicon rights would be settled well before Daishowa intended to begin logging. Needless to say, Lubicon aboriginal rights and titles including land and resource rights were not settled then. Nor are they settled now.

At that time we made it very clear that until Lubicon rights are settled, no further logging will be allowed to take place within our traditional lands. After an international boycott which lasted seven long years and cost Daishowa - by their own estimates - over $20 million in lost sales, Daishowa committed in writing not to cut or to buy wood cut within Lubicon traditional territories until Lubicon rights are settled and an agreement is negotiated respecting Lubicon wildlife and environmental concerns in the Lubicon traditional territory.

But despite our well-known opposition to clear-cut logging in our unceded traditional territory, and despite the hard-won promise from Daishowa not to proceed with clear-cut logging in that territory, we understand that Alberta is once again making a significant portion of our traditional territory available for logging.

We understand further that there are plans to sell these timber rights in unceded Lubicon territory to other First Nations in the surrounding area as part of a transparent provincial government strategy to put other First Nations in the front lines of provincial government efforts to undermine and subvert Lubicon rights. Using supposed economic benefits as bait to play poor aboriginal people off against each other and steal valuable aboriginal lands and resources is a classic colonial divide and conquer tactic which will be recognized and condemned as such by people around the world. It's also the type of tactic which people around the world hoped the Alberta government had abandoned with negotiation of the Grimshaw Accord.

Moreover we understand that Daishowa is involved with these plans and would be obtaining the resulting timber despite Daishowa's agreement that Daishowa "will not harvest or purchase" timber from unceded Lubicon territory pending settlement of Lubicon rights and negotiation of an agreement with the Lubicons respecting Lubicon wildlife and environmental concerns. As with the Alberta government, these kind of tactics are not new for Daishowa but people around the world hoped Daishowa had learned from the $20 million Daishowa boycott that all the slippery subterfuge in the world will not prevent people from seeing through what Daishowa is doing and holding Daishowa accountable for it.

When your government first sent us an invitation to submit our comments on the prospect of renewed logging within our traditional territory we wrote to Dan Wilkinson, Regional Director of Alberta Environmental Protection, and made it clear that unceded Lubicon territory is off-limits for further logging until Lubicon rights have been resolved.

Yet only one week after Alberta's negotiator John McCarthy met with us to restart negotiations between our governments, your government announced that Alberta is now seeking bids for that same timber. Selling off the resources which are the subject of talks even as you sit at the negotiating table does not indicate any serious desire on your government's part to resolve these issues. That underhanded approach to dealing with Lubicon rights prolongs continuing uncertainty to the detriment of not only the Lubicon people but to the detriment of all people with interests in the area who need a settlement of Lubicon rights to be able to proceed with their lives in an orderly, predictable way.

I am again enclosing a map of the Lubicon traditional territory for your information. We trust you will advise anyone wishing to log in those areas that our respective rights in traditional Lubicon territory are subject to negotiation and that rights to the resources in those areas are therefore not currently available for sale.

Sincerely,

Bernard Ominayak

Chief, Lubicon Lake Indian Nation

cc Chief Federal Negotiator Brad Morse

Chief Provincial Negotiator John McCarthy

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