By DEB GUERETTE
RECORD-GAZETTE STAFF
The provincial government's call for proposals for timber allocation in disputed Lubicon Lake Indian Nation traditional territory is underhanded, Lubicon leadership has told premier Ralph Klein.
Mike Cardinal, associate minister of forestry, officially issued a request for proposals for timber in three north central forest management units, Aug. 3.
Rights to the S10 FMU were released by Daishowa-Marubeni International when it canceled its plant expansion plans. After a multi-year boycott effort that cost Ontario based paper producer Daishowa Inc. some $20 million in lost sales, DMI this spring publicly committed to not log in or purchase timber from the S10 area that surrounds the first nation's proposed reserve lands on three sides, until Lubicon land rights were settled.
Putting the "timber rights in unceded Lubicon territory" up for industry grabs again is "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," Lubicon chief Bernard Ominayak told premier Klein in an Aug. 25 letter.
"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," Ominayak wrote.
Recent provincial government involvement in Lubicon settlement negotiations is also undermined by the timber allocation plans, Ominayak says.
"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. (This) approach to dealing with Lubicon rights prolongs continuing uncertainty to the determent 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 proceed with their lives in an orderly, predictable way," Ominayak wrote.
Peace River MLA Gary Friedel says the "traditional territory" the Lubicon claim is Crown land that "has never been recognized as theirs by anyone but themselves."
The area was part of an industry forest management area and the 185,000 cubic meters of timber available for harvest annually in S10 will be again after proposals are reviewed and it is reallocated.
Lubicon settlement negotiations "are ongoing" and the amount of land negotiated will be provided by the province, Friedel said.
"I don't think it is appropriate to sterilize the whole area," while negotiations continue, Friedel said.
Aboriginal involvement in the new proposals for that area will be important, he adds.
"It would be most difficult to consider any proposal that did not significantly consider involvement by aboriginal communities," he said, adding, "any company that submits (bids for S10 timber) would have to assume the responsibility of working with all the native communities around there." The need for development in the area makes it hard for government to hold back on doing business until the Lubicon claim is settled, he said.
"You can't put the business of government on hold... (and) have everything in limbo until this issue is settled. There appears to be light at the end of the tunnel (for the Lubicon settlement), but it has been there before, too," he said.
Ominayak tells Klein that "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 for sale."
Friends of the Lubicon, the group that organized the Daishowa boycott, is advising its network of supporters of the recent developments. Lubicon leadership first asked the federal government to negotiate land rights in the 1930's.
After many failed rounds of settlement discussions, a new chief federal negotiator was appointed in spring 1998 and talks, called productive by both sides, have been ongoing since.
Chief provincial negotiator John McCarthy met with the negotiating parties for the first time July 29.
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