By Darcy Henton, Legislature Bureau
A European human rights group says it wouldn't even try to sell a used car to Canada based on the way the federal government is negotiating with the Lubicon.
Dionys Zink of the Action Group for Indian and Human Rights in Germany said yesterday that the Canadian government has shown "blatant disrespect" for the human and aboriginal rights of the Lubicon.
Watching the federal election from afar, Zink slammed a federal Liberal candidate's position that a breakdown in communication is behind the failure of the Liberal government to resolve the land claim.
"After a decade and a half it is clear that it is not communications problems, but lack of political will," Zink told the Sun.
He said that his 200-member organization, with ties to dozens of other organizations throughout Europe, is "appalled" by developments since negotiations between Ottawa and the Lubicon broke down in 2003.
Zink, a college professor whose support of the Lubicon dates back to the blockades erected in 1988, says he's convinced the federal government tried to trick the Lubicon into a deal that wouldn't have recognized their right to self-government.
He says federal negotiators told the Lubicon that putting the right to self-government in the preamble rather than in the body of the deal would have no effect, but the government's own guidelines for negotiators suggested the courts would give it less weight if it was done that way.
But when Lubicon Chief Bernard Ominayak complained to Indian Affairs Minister Andy Scott that the federal negotiators were bargaining in bad faith, Scott denied the allegation, saying Canada "always negotiated ... in good faith."
Scott stated in an October 2004 letter to Ominayak that he expected the self-government clauses eventually to be placed in the body of the agreement, "making them legally binding on Canada."
Indian Affairs spokesman Glenn Luff said the federal government is anxious to resolve the land claim. Negotiations to resolve the 66-year-old claim have stalled over the issues of self-government and compensation owed to the Lubicon.
A UN Human Rights Committee recently urged Canada - for a second time - to resolve the claim.
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