In March of 1990 the UN Human Rights Committee found:

The "more recent developments" to which the Committee was referring include the deliberate and systematic destruction of the traditional hunting and trapping economy of the Lubicon people, orchestrated by the Alberta provincial government as part of a legal strategy designed to undermine and subvert unceded Lubicon aboriginal land rights to 4000 square miles of resource-rich land located between Lesser Slave Lake and the Peace and Wabasca Rivers.

As a result of Alberta government efforts to destroy the traditional Lubicon hunting and trapping economy, the number of moose killed for food by the Lubicon people was reduced from over 200 to 19. Average disposal income from trapping dropped from over $5,000 per trapper per year to under $400 per year. Ninety-five per cent of the members of a previously self-sufficient society were forced onto state-provided welfare to feed their families. There were 19 still-births out of 21 pregnancies in an 18 month period. A clearly related tuberculous epidemic infected 1/3 of the Lubicon people.

Referring to the Committee decision the Canadian Indian Affairs Minister told the Canadian Parliament:

In fact Lubicon "allegations" were substantially corroborated by a number of independent investigators including an ex-Canadian Justice Minister appointed by a previous Canadian Indian Affairs Minister to conduct an inquiry into the Lubicon situation (who was effectively fired after delivering his conclusions and recommendations), by the World Council of Churches (who after months of reviewing the situation wrote the Canadian Prime Minister charging that actions by the Alberta government and dozens of oil companies could have genocidal consequences for the Lubicon people), and by the Curator of Ethnology for the highy regarding Museum of the American Indian --now part of the Smithsonian Institute -- who, after conducting extensive field and archival research into the situation, charged the Canadian government with ethnocide.

The Committee also found, in language which continues to mystify many observers, that Canada:

Regarding this second finding by the Committee the Canadian Indian Affairs Minister told the Canadian Parliament that the Committee:

In fact Canada misinformed the Committee about the contents of the so-called "take-it-or-leave-it" settlement offer, which made no provision for the Lubicon people to once again become economically self-sufficient and did not contain provisions which Canada told the Committee it contained.

The first round of negotiations took place in 1992 and started with a Canadian government proposal to appoint an independent cost assessor to check the accuracy of Lubicon settlement cost estimates which Canadian officials alleged were too high. The Lubicon people agreed to appointment of an independent cost assessor to check the accuracy of Lubicon settlement cost estimates.

Canadian officials then sought to manipulate the independent cost assessor’s conclusions by secretly trying to change the independent cost assessor’s terms of reference to calculating what could be done under notoriously inadequate normal Canadian government programs and services for Indians. The attempt to manipulate the conclusions of the independent cost assessor by secretly changing his terms of reference was discovered and Canadian officials were forced to reinstate the original terms of reference. The independent cost assessor went on to conclude that Lubicon settlement cost estimates were too low rather then too high.

Canadian officials then refused to even discuss the conclusions of the independent cost assessor. Instead they publicly released a re-packaged version of their 1989 so-called "take-it-or-leave-it" settlement offer claiming that the re-packaged offer was considerably better than the 1989 version.

In fact Canadian officials had effectively cooked the numbers by, among other things, comparing the 1989 numbers and the 1992 numbers without taking into account the impact of inflation. When the impact of inflation was taken into account, the 1992 settlement numbers were even lower and less adequate than the 1989 so-called "take-it-or-leave-it" settlement offer.

One Canadian official asked what was wrong with using what’s available to the Lubicon people anyway under normal Canadian government programs and services for Indians as the basis for settling Lubicon land rights. He was asked to name one single aboriginal society in Canada that is economically self-sufficient based solely on normal Canadian government programs and services for Indians. The Canadian government official replied "You know I can’t do that". He was told "That’s what’s wrong with using normal Canadian government programs and services for Indians as the basis for settling valuable unceded Lubicon land rights.

There was a second round of Lubicon land negotiations in 1995-96. This time, after months of discussing outstanding settlement issues and fooling around with numbers, Canadian officials proposed to settle Lubicon land rights for a package based on normal Canadian government programs and services but with the proviso that they would then – after the Lubicon people had ceded valuable Lubicon lands and resources on which anything additional would be based -- seek a further mandate to negotiate the remaining items "in good faith".

The last round of Lubicon land negotiations commenced in 1998. The Canadian government position was again based on normal Canadian government programs and services supposedly available to the Lubicon people in any case. This last negotiating session ended in December of 2003 when Canadian government officials told the Lubicon people that they "had no mandate" to negotiate either self-government or financial compensation.

Initially Canadian government officials told the Lubicon people that they didn’t know that the Lubicons wanted recognition of the right of the Lubicon people to be self-governing included in a settlement agreement, despite the fact that self-government had been on the table in writing as an essential element of any Lubicon settlement agreement since 1985, and despite the fact that Lubicon self-government proposals had been given to the new Canadian government head negotiator in writing in 1998 as an essential element of any Lubicon settlement agreement.

In July of 2003 Canadian government officials took the position that they couldn’t negotiate self-government as part of a Lubicon land settlement agreement because, they claimed, negotiating self-government is very complicated and would take too long. The Lubicon people responded by re-casting their written self-government proposals in language taken directly from self-government settlement agreements negotiated by Canada with other aboriginal people in Canada.

Canadian government officials refused to even discuss the re-cast Lubicon self-government proposals despite the fact that the Canadian constitution recognizes that aboriginal people have the "inherent right" of self-government. Asked why they wouldn’t even discuss Lubicon self-government proposals when the Lubicons were not proposing anything different that Canadian officials had already agreed with other aboriginal societies, Canadian officials, obviously failing to comprehend the implications of their position, explained "Those other agreements are in the form of non-binding letters of intent, letters of agreement, framework agreements and agreements-in-principle" . They said "Those agreements aren’t binding". They said – correctly -- "The Lubicons want a binding agreement".

Instead of negotiating recognition of the right of the Lubicon people to be self-governing as a part of any settlement of Lubicon land rights, Canadian officials proposed to put some general statements in the preamble of a settlement agreement about how the Canadian government recognizes the right of aborginal people to self-government and the Lubicon people assert the right of self-government. Canadian negotiators assured the Lubicon people that such provisions in the preamble of a settlement agreement would be as binding as provisions contained in the body of the settlement agreement.

The Lubicon people insisted that the right of the Lubicon people to manage their own affairs had to be recognized in any settlement of Lubicon land rights, and that there also had to be agreement on the procedure to over time negotiate how Lubicon jurisdiction would be exercised in ways which were compatible and not in conflict with the exercise of jurisdiction by other governments in Canada.

Despite the fact that self-government is a constitutionally recognized right of aboriginal people in Canada, Canadian government officials refused to include recognition of the right of the Lubicon people to be self-governing in a Lubicon settlement agreement, or to agree to a procedure on how to negotiate exercise of Lubicon jurisdiction post-settlement. They told the Lubicon people that all they were prepared to do in a settlement agreement was agree to talk about self-government post-settlement. They told the Lubicon people that they did not have a mandate to negotiate self-government as part of a Lubicon settlement agreement.

In December of 2003 the Lubicon people obtained a copy of secret guidelines to Canadian self-government negotiators drafted by Canadian Justice Department lawyers in 1996 on how to negotiate aboriginal self-government in bad faith. It included instructions to Canadian self-government negotiators to put carefully crafted general clauses in the preamble of an agreeement but nothing in the body of the agreement because clauses in the preamble are not binding unless they have a referrant in the body of the agreement. They instructed Canadian self-government negotiators to always refer to aboriginal First Nations in the plural instead of the singular because a First Nation referred to in the singular might be able to go to court and have the court find that they have a constitutionally protected right of self-government while a First Nation referred to in the plural could not legally assert a constitutionally protected right of self-government as a part of a collective. The language used by Canadian representatives at the Lubicon negotiating table was taken verbatim from the 1996 Canadian Justice Department Guidelines to Canadian self-government negotiators.

In March of 2004 Lubicon Chief Bernard Ominayak wrote Canadian Indian Affairs Minister asking that Canada send negotiators back to the table with a full mandate to negotiate Lubicon land rights in good faith. In October of 2004 – 7 months later – the Canadian Indian Affairs Minister wrote Chief Ominayak back rejecting out of hand charges that Canada ever negotiates in bad faith and indicating that he was reviewing the Lubicon request to send negotiators back to the table with a full mandate to negotiate long-standing Lubicon settlement issues.

In June of 2005 – 15 months after Chief Ominayak wrote asking that Canada send negotiators back to the table with a full mandate to negotiate long-standing Lubicon settlement issues in good faith – the Canadian Indian Affairs Minister wrote Chief Ominayak proposing that negotiations resume "under the current mandate" – which doesn’t include either self-government or financial compensation – or "to jointly agree to close this round of negotiations" until government financed round table discussions with the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) on "broad policy issues" are completed – negotiations which the Canadian Indian Affairs Minister speculated would take at least a year and most informed observers doubt will ever be successfully completed. The Canadian Indian Affairs Minister wrote further that these negotiations with the AFN "may result in recommendations for changes in the (Canadian government’s policy on negotiating aboriginal self-government including the Justice Department Guidelines instructing Canadian government negotiators on how to negotiate in bad faith) that could possibly address the concerns you have expressed regarding self-government. (underlining added)".

In the meantime it is now 15 years after the Committee found Canada in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. There has been no settlement of Lubicon land rights. An independent Commission of prominent Canadians looking into why there is no settlement concluded, among other things, that Canada has not been negotiating in good faith. And both levels of Canadian government have continued their efforts to undermine and subvert unceded Lubicon land rights including massive gas and oil exploitation and the financing of aboriginal societies in the surrounding area to come in and clear-cut Lubicon forests.

A month ago Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin made a well-reported speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York in which he charged the United Nations with being "all talk and no action". Prime Minister Martin said "The status quo and often empty rhetoric must make way for a new and pragmatic multilateralism measured by concrete results". He said "Our citizens want security based in international law". He said "They want opportunity based in more effective aid". He said "They want empowerment based in human rights". He demanded that the "dysfunctional (UN) Human Rights Commission be replaced with a more effective body".

The Lubicon people of course know that Prime Minister Martin isn’t talking about UN failure to enforce the 1990 UN Human Rights Committee decision holding Canada in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights but, Mr Martin and members of the UN Human Rights Committee, if the shoe fits…

Without presuming to lecture the United Nations on how to restructure itself, the Lubicon people agree with Prime Minister Martin that there needs to be more effective follow-up on decisions of the UN Human Rights Committee. After 6 years of torturous deliberations to make a decision in the first place, 15 additional years without noticeable effect is too long for beleaguered people to wait for redress.

In this vein the Lubicon people ask that the UN Human Rights Committee follow-up on the 1990 Committee decision holding Canada in violation of the Covenant. We ask, at a minimum, that the Committee:

Nobody anywhere should be subjected to the kind of treatment the Lubicon people have suffered and continue to receive from the governments of Canada and Alberta. Nobody anywhere should receive less than fair dealing in a timely way.

Less would not only substantiate Prime Minister Martin’s harsh criticisms of the ineffectiveness of UN human rights machinery but would also implicate the members of the United Nations Human Rights Committee in the continuing destruction of the traditional Lubicon society.