Lubicon Solidarity

(copied and pasted from The Friends of Grassy Narrows, February 9th)

Outaouais Lubicon Solidarity (OLS) is launching a new protest campaign today to push the Canadian government to negotiate a just settlement of Lubicon Lake Indian Nation land rights and finally end this long-standing Canadian human rights tragedy.

The Lubicon Lake Indian Nation, a First Nation of approximately 500 people living in northern Alberta, retain their Aboriginal and treaty rights to their traditional lands. Negotiations with the federal and provincial governments have so far failed to resolve their outstanding land rights. Meanwhile over $13 billion in oil and gas has been taken from their Traditional Territory. The United Nations, Amnesty International and the World Council of Churches have all called on Canada to resolve this dispute.

Starting today, every time the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board approves a new oil or gas well or pipeline for development in Lubicon Traditional Territory, supporters of a Lubicon settlement will send e-mail messages and letters to the Minister of Indian Affairs Andy Scott, local Members of Parliament and Alberta Minister of Aboriginal Affairs Pearl Calahesan telling them that yet another development has been authorized on Lubicon Territory prior to resolving the land rights in the area and urging them to resolve this injustice through negotiations now. The group expects to generate thousands of letters supporting a Lubicon settlement.

In 2002 there were already over 1,700 oil or gas well sites in Lubicon Traditional Territory and countless miles of pipelines connecting those to the market. Last year alone another 77 oil and gas wells and 75 pipelines were approved within Lubicon Traditional Territory.

Already eleven wells and eight pipelines have been approved since the beginning of this year. Some of these involve primary oil sands development within 3 miles of the proposed Lubicon reserve lands. The campaign will continue until March 12, 2005.

OLS is a non-profit, volunteer group that supports the Lubicon Nation's land rights struggle.
For more information, contact: Ed Bianchi at (613) 235-9956 or grabia@istar.ca

Background: The Lubicon Lake Indian Nation

The Lubicon Lake Indian Nation, an Indigenous nation of approximately 500 people living in northern Alberta, have never surrendered their rights to their traditional lands. The Lubicon were simply overlooked when a treaty was negotiated with other Indigenous peoples in the region in 1899. A reserve promised to them forty years later was never established. Since the mid-1980s, negotiations with the federal and provincial governments have repeatedly broken down. Meanwhile, the Lubicon say that their health, their way of life and their culture itself are being steadily destroyed by resource extraction to which they've never consented.

As Amnesty International said in a recent report, "It's now been more than 100 years since the Lubicon were overlooked in the Alberta treaty process, more than 60 years they were first promised recognition of a secure landbase, more than a quarter century since the first negotiations began with the federal government, and more than a decade since the United Nations called on Canada to stop the violation of the Lubicons' human rights. To say that justice is overdue is an understatement."

Oil and gas exploitation goes on.

While the Lubicon Nation tries to negotiate a settlement of Lubicon land rights with the federal and Alberta governments, the Alberta government's Energy and Utilities Board (EUB) authorizes more and more oil and gas wells and pipelines within Lubicon Traditional Territory. In 2002 there were already over 1,700 oil or gas well sites in Lubicon Traditional Territory and countless miles of pipelines connecting those to market. Last year alone another 77 oil and gas wells and 75 pipelines were approved within Lubicon Traditional Territory. Already eleven wells and eight pipelines have been approved since the beginning of this year. Some of these involve oil sands development within 3 miles of the proposed Lubicon reserve lands.

A further 2,300 hectares of land within Lubicon Territory were leased to oil and gas companies by the Provincial government since the start of this year. Those lease sales netted over $800,000 for provincial coffers in one day, all from Lubicon lands.

The Lubicon Nation estimates that over $13 billion in oil and gas resources have been taken from Lubicon Traditional Territory since oil and gas exploitation was begun in earnest 26 years ago. From that, the Alberta government receives - by conservative estimates - somewhere around 20% in royalties.

The Lubicon people, for their part, have received no royalties, no taxes, and no financial compensation for what oil and gas development has done to their traditional economy and way of life. At most the Lubicon people have received some seasonal employment building leases and rights of way for developments they neither control nor approve.

For more information, please visit http://www.lubiconsolidarity.ca/