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Edmonton, AB T6J 1A4
403-436-5652
FAX: 403-437-0719
July 29, 1991
On July 5 and 6, 1991, the so-called Woodland Cree Band held a
referendum on whether or not to accept a settlement package
offered to them by the Governments of Canada and Alberta.
Enclosed for your information are related media reports.
The Woodland referendum was officially conducted by officials of
the Canadian Federal Department of Indian Affairs. Scripted and
stage managed by Canadian Government officials would be a more
accurate characterization.
In order to assure a good level of voter participation,
Woodlanders were picked-up at home, given rides to and from the
polling place and paid $50 each to vote. In order to secure a
positive electoral result, Woodlanders were promised an
additional $1,000 per family member if they voted to accept the
Government "offer".
The list of supposedly eligible Woodland voters inexplicably
jumped from 268 before the referendum to 295 by the end of the
first day of voting to 309 by the time the polls closed -- 30
minutes after the official closing time. During the time of the
referendum people were aggressively accosted in their homes,
offered an immediate cash payment of $50 if they agreed to vote,
promised another $1,000 per family member if they voted the right
way and verbally harassed and harangued if they in any way
resisted -- real banana republic stuff.
Not surprisingly voter participation in the referendum was an
impressive 87% and 98.5% voted to accept the offer. Tougher to
understand are the lonesome threesome who reportedly voted to
reject the offer.
Likely the lonesome threesome who reportedly voted to reject the
"offer" just didn't get their voting instructions straight, or
perhaps the Federal Government's script called for three votes to
reject the "offer" -- just so referendum results wouldn't look
too contrived. With the Mulroney Government either possibility
is conceivable.
In defense of the obvious financial inducements to vote and vote
the right way, Government officials and Band representatives
described in practised unison the $50 per voter cash payment as
"expense money", and the promise of an additional $1,000 per
family member as merely a "benefit" of the proposed settlement
agreement. Independent observers, however, were hard pressed to
find Woodlanders who understood much more about the proposed
settlement agreement than that they'd be paid $50 to vote and
$1,000 per family member if they voted to accept.
Asked what expenses were involved in being driven a couple of
blocks to vote and then back home again, Government and Band
representatives admitted that not everybody required expense
money. However, they said, some people required expense money
and everybody had to be treated "equally". (Apparently the
Mulroney Government has now developed a peculiar kind of concern
for people being treated "equally".)
A couple of days later it was learned that the promised $1,000
payments per family member will be deducted from people's welfare
payments over the next few months. Government officials
explained that these $1,000 per family member payments would
increase a family's income over the maximum allowable income for
welfare recipients. Consistent with the Mulroney Government's
new concern for equal treatment, Federal Government officials
explained that income rules for determining who qualifies for
welfare had to be applied to all welfare recipients "equally".
Sudden Mulroney Government concern for "equal treatment" is
strange indeed. Stranger still is sudden Mulroney Government
concern for the Woodlanders being treated "equally". There
wouldn't even be a Woodland Cree Band if the Woodlanders were
treated the same as everybody else. And of course all welfare
recipients aren't transparently being manipulated into ceding
their aboriginal land rights and children's heritage in exchange
for welfare payments to which they're entitled in any case.
Squirming under questions from incredulous reporters who just
couldn't believe how the referendum was being conducted,
Government officials claimed that the $1,000 payments won't be
deducted from welfare checks if people used the money to buy
furniture for their homes or work clothes. Required home
furniture and work clothes are of course already provided to
welfare recipients on a special grant basis over and above normal
welfare benefits.
Woodland Chief Johnny Cardinal defended the $1,000 per family
member payments as "economic development". "Take a family of
five," Chief Cardinal said, "that's five grand." "If they go out
and purchase a fairly decent vehicle," Chief Cardinal said,
"that's economic development."
Chief Cardinal couldn't explain how buying a used vehicle, almost
certainly in a neighbouring non-aboriginal community, would
constitute Woodlander "economic development". Neither could he
explain how buying a used vehicle with what amounts to an advance
against subsistence welfare payments -- normally required to
purchase basic food and other essentials for one's family --
would constitute Woodlander "economic development". (Purchase of
a used vehicle of course clearly won't qualify for exemption from
welfare payment deduction as home furniture or work clothes.)
With most Woodlanders dependent on welfare, the Federal
Government should be able to fairly quickly recoup most of the
$700,000 or so paid out to assure a positive electorial result.
While the relationship of such slick dealing to the admirable
objectives of equality and economic development might seem more
perverse than positive, the Mulroney Government must certainly be
given high marks for creativity in buying people's votes with
their own welfare money -- sort of a Canadian Oliver North type
of operation.
Substantively the Woodland Cree settlement offer consists
basically of a reserve land component, an infrastructure
component and a so-called "socio-economic development" component.
The actual text of the offer has been independently described by
two different Lubicon legal advisors as one of the most
complicated, convoluted and obscure legal documents they've ever
seen. Given the provisions of the offer, the obscure nature of
the text is likely intentional.
The reserve land component provides 35,200 acres or 55 square
miles of reserve land plus $512,000 from the Canadian Federal
Government "in lieu of" an additional 16 square miles of reserve
land. $512,000 for 16 square miles of reserve land amounts to
$50 per acre for self-selected, tax-free, inalienable Indian land
-- about what the Indians got for Manhattan Island.
Although the so-called Woodland Cree Band didn't exist until it
was "created" a couple of years ago by the Canadian Government
out of disparate individuals from a half-a-dozen different
aboriginal societies, and consequently couldn't have conceivably
been a party to treaty negotiated in 1899 except by very recent
adhesion -- which hasn't happened -- the Woodland Cree settlement
offer is explicitly a settlement offer under the terms of Treaty
8. Ignoring the normal niceties of traditional Treaty-making the
proposed Woodland Cree settlement offer simply proclaims that