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
September 28, 2000
Negotiations between the Lubicon Nation and the Canadian federal government were scheduled to restart September 26 in Little Buffalo. However the meeting did not take place as planned and a new date had to be scheduled.
The federal negotiating team informed the Lubicons last week that they would only be available for a one-day meeting on September 26th to resume negotiations after the summer-long suspension. They told the Lubicons that other commitments made a longer session impossible for the federal team. They proposed to meet for "one long day" by chartering a plane to nearby Peace River which would allow them to stay later in the day than they would normally be able to under regular airline schedules. The Lubicons agreed to meet with the federal negotiating team for "one long day" to get negotiations underway again.
On Tuesday, September 26th, the Lubicons awaited the arrival of the federal team in vain. Chief Federal Negotiator Brad Morse called to inform Chief Ominayak that heavy fog at the Peace River airport had made it impossible for their chartered plane to land. After periodic calls to report their status, Morse finally called around 3:30 pm to inform the Lubicons that the fog had lifted and the federal team could now fly to Peace River and they could be in Peace River around 4:30pm. However, he said, he would have to fly out again by 7:30pm at the latest. He asked that the Lubicons meet with him in Peace River (about an hour's drive from the Lubicon community of Little Buffalo) rather than in Little Buffalo.
After consulting with the assembled community members who had been waiting since 10:30 that morning to observe the negotiations, Chief Ominayak spoke to Brad at 4pm and told Brad Morse to come back another time when the federal team would have more time to meet. Chief Ominayak and Brad Morse agreed that the Lubicons and the federal negotiating team would meet on Tuesday October 10th in Little Buffalo.
Public pressure on the federal government to settle Lubicon land rights continues to grow. Lubicon supporters gave the public information campaign a boost when they gathered on Parliament Hill in Ottawa that same day to construct a mock Lubicon reserve, telling the federal government to get on with the job of settling Lubicon land rights and building a new community at Lubicon Lake. Press coverage related to that demonstration and to debates in Parliament regarding Lubicon land rights are attached.
Wednesday 27 September 2000
Edmonton Journal
Norm Ovenden
Journal Ottawa Bureau
It was Jean Chretien's turn to eat his words when he was reminded Tuesday of a 1993 pledge to seek a quick settlement to the land claim by the Lubicon Cree.
While the Canadian Alliance tried to embarrass the prime minister in the Commons for failing to live up to his promises, about 50 Ontario and Quebec supporters of the impoverished northern Alberta band demonstrated outside on the front lawn.
"Mr. Chretien: Respect Your Commitment" read one sign carried by an elderly woman at the protest, which included a mock reserve constructed of cardboard houses, a health centre, a schoolhouse and water tower.
"Let's see some action. Sixty years is too damn long," shouted Lubicon supporter Len Bush, a representative of the National Union of Public and General Employees.
Alliance native affairs critic Derek Konrad was quieter in the House as he read a letter Chretien wrote to a citizens' commission in June 1993, four months before the fall election. The commission was appointed by the Alberta New Democrats to look into the stalled land dispute and government promises dating back to 1939.
"Time is wasting," wrote Chretien, who was then opposition leader. "We believe that the (Tory) government has reneged on its fiduciary responsibility to the Lubicon people. We support the swift resolution of all claims, and consider the Lubicon claim to be a priority."
For the past week, Chretien has toyed with Stockwell Day by pointing out inconsistencies between what the Alliance leader now proposes and what he said and wrote as an MLA and cabinet minister in Alberta.
Konrad turned the tables Tuesday by quoting Chretien's own letter back to him.
"Today, the Lubicon are so sick and tired of waiting that they're setting up a reserve right on the front lawn of Parliament," Konrad said. "The promise the prime minister made in 1993 never was kept. Was it just a political promise to win an election?"
As Chretien looked away, Indian Affairs Minister Bob Nault replied, saying negotiations resumed Monday in Little Buffalo, 450 km northwest of Edmonton, between the band and federal officials. Talks were suspended last May after Chief Bernard Ominayak was angered by the department's plan to cut off social assistance to families who no longer live at Little Buffalo.
If the Alliance wants to be helpful, it should work to convince the Alberta government to be more flexible on land settlement issues needed to establish a 246-sq-km reserve, Nault said.
Supporters of the Lubicon have vowed to make the lack of progress an election issue. They recently bought a $1,000 newspaper ad in Nault's northern Ontario riding in an effort to pressure the minister. The next day, the department reversed its social assistance plan.
The bilateral talks are expected to proceed slowly. Officials meet twice a month. Even if a deal is struck, the talks would then have to be expanded to include the Alberta government to hammer out land details.
September 26, 2000
Grande Prairie Daily Herald Tribune
DEB GUERETTE
Herald-Tribune staff
Lubicon Lake Indian Nation supporters are building the North Peace band a home community today - on Parliament Hill.
Carrying in replica community buildings made of extra-large cardboard boxes, "construction workers" set-up a community for the reserve-less band on Parliament Hill to "show Ottawa how to do it," Outaouais Lubicon Solidarity secretary Kathryn Gunn said.
"The objective is to raise the issue... to show what should be accomplished," Gunn said from her Hull-area home Monday as she put the finishing touches on a cardboard school bus.
Other OLS members and Montreal-based Amitie Lubicons-Quebec members prepared a variety of buildings, an elders home, community centre, health clinic, school building, band council office and even water tower, for the demonstration village, Gunn said.
About 100 Ottawa-area Lubicon supporters were expected to turn-out, don hard hats and help set-up the community, she said.
First promised a reserve over 60 years ago, Lubicon land rights need to be settled, an OLS press release said.
"Under the slogan '60 years is too long,' grassroots activists are demanding that the federal government fulfill a 1939 promise to set aside reserve lands for the Lubicon Nation in Alberta," OLS announced Sunday.
The demonstration took place in Ottawa as negotiations resumed between the federal government and Lubicon leadership in Little Buffalo, after on-going talks were suspended for two-months when Indian and Northern Affairs Canada Alberta regional office gave notice it planned to withdraw from a 20-year-old social program funding arrangement with the band.
INAC minister Robert Nault received over 200 letters of concern about the Lubicon before the regional office reversed its controversial decision.
New Democrat aboriginal affairs critic Louise Hardy was to direct a question about the outstanding Lubicon land rights settlement to Nault in the House of Commons while the demonstration was under way outside, Gunn said.
Canadian Press story
September 27, 2000
OTTAWA (CP) - Supporters of Alberta's Lubicon Lake Indian Nation called on Ottawa on Tuesday to quickly settle a land-claims dispute that has dragged on for more than half a century.
"Sixty years is too long to wait for a promise to be kept," Ed Bianchi of the Outaouais Lubicon Solidarity group told about 40 supporters on Parliament Hill. The Ottawa-based group built a small village of cardboard boxes on the front lawn of the main Parliament Buildings to represent Little Buffalo, Alta., where the Lubicon Cree are set to resume negotiations with Ottawa on their land claim, Bianchi said.
The latest round of talks on the 60-year-old claim began in June 1998.
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