e-mail: fol (at) tao (dot) ca
Friends of the Lubicon (Toronto)
Address as of Dec 12, 2000:
PO BOX 444 STN D,
ETOBICOKE ON M9A 4X4
tel: (416) 763-7500
January 12, 2000
Attached is an article from today's Edmonton Journal on the status of Lubicon land rights negotiations.
There have been no meetings between the Lubicon Lake Indian Nation and the Canadian federal government to resolve Lubicon land rights since November 1, 1999.
In July, 1999, some progress seemed to have been made. Substantial agreement had been reached on membership last spring, whereby the Lubicon have the right to define who is a Lubicon subject to their membership code. Other work had progressed on an environmental audit of proposed reserve lands and the federal government had made a serious proposal regarding construction of the Lubicon community. The Lubicons had responded with a counter-proposal which addressed their concerns with the federal proposal. A technical committee was struck to draft proposals on construction management in the hopes that agreement on community construction might be reached relatively quickly.
After July, however, progress slowed considerably.
Difficulties arose when the federal team insisted on inviting the province of Alberta to join the talks. The Lubicon position has always been that substantial progress needed to be made bilaterally before the province comes to the table.
Under considerable pressure from the federal negotiating team, the Lubicons eventually agreed to invite the province to make an initial presentation to the negotiating teams on November 2, 1999, after a meeting November 1 between the Lubicons and the federal negotiating team. The Lubicons agreed to invite the province on the condition that further bilateral progress would be made in the month prior to the November 1 meeting. However, upon returning to the table a month after the last federal-Lubicon session, the Lubicons found that the federal negotiating team had not done essential work agreed to at the previous session, they had not kept timetables agreed to at the previous session, and that negotiations had essentially not progressed in the month between negotiating sessions. The Lubicons said that the meeting with the province should be postponed while a joint federal-Lubicon technical committee met to identify issues which needed to be addressed at the main table in order to make some progress the following day. If progress could be made bilaterally on November 2, the Lubicons said, the province may be invited to attend negotiations on the 3rd.
Instead, the federal team left northern Alberta on November 2 without meeting. There have been no meetings since that time, although there has been an exchange of correspondence.
One hopes that the federal government is serious about resolving Lubicon land rights. There is a lot of work to be done. The Lubicon counter-proposal on community construction presented last June has not yet been responded to. Nor has there been agreement on other core issues: economic development, a trappers support program, dispute resolution, self-government and compensation. Issues which involve the province of Alberta have also not been agreed, including land for reserve purposes and environment and wildlife management.
It seems that as long as the Lubicons are engaged in negotiations, the federal government feels assured that the Lubicons will not cause political embarrassment for them. That's not much of an incentive for them to proceed quickly towards settlement. Lubicon supporters, therefore, need to remind the federal government that support for a settlement is strong and negotiations need to be productive and timely -- otherwise they will be considered no more honourable than outright denial of Lubicon rights.
Please write:
Robert Nault, Minister of Indian Affairs, House of Commons Ottawa, ON, K1A 0A6
& forward any response received to FoL.
Or write your MP as part of the Lubicon Lobby Campaign effort. For more information on this campaign, please check out the Lobby page. (The Lubicon Lobby Campaign in the form described above has been discontinued and information about the campaign removed from the web site.)
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Edmonton Journal Wednesday 12 January 2000
Settlement of Lubicon claim years off, says chief federal negotiator
(CP) Breaking ground for a home community for the Lubicon Lake First Nation is likely years away, says a federal land claim negotiator.
This spring will mark the second year of the latest round of talks on the land claim which dates back almost 70 years.
"It could be a couple of years -- maybe even further down the road than that" before provincial, federal and Lubicon negotiators conclude the comprehensive claim, said Brad Morse, chief federal negotiator.
"(There) won't be groundbreaking until, first off, we have a final settlement," he said.
But band adviser Fred Lennarson says that as talks drag on, conditions keep getting worse for the impoverished Lubicon.
Houses and buildings in Little Buffalo, where Lubicon members live, are mostly substandard and there is no running water.
The Lubicon want a 246-sq-km reserve about 450 km northwest of Edmonton.
Morse, an Ottawa law professor, was appointed by the federal government to reopen the Lubicon talks in June 1998.
When he was appointed, Morse said he planned to be the last federal Lubicon claim negotiator and committed to fast-track the talks as much as possible.
Last New Year, he estimated that a comprehensive agreement in principle could be achieved in 1999. The next negotiation session has yet to be scheduled.
Federal and Lubicon negotiators reached agreement in writing last June on how the First Nation's membership would be determined. Morse has said the federal team accepts the Lubicon request for a reserve.
fol-request at masses.tao.ca