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December 2, 1991
Enclosed for your information is a copy of an article on the new Lubicon
book by John Goddard.
The article contains one error. Bill McKnight is not from Alberta but from
the neighboring Province of Saskatchewan.
* * * * *
FRANK MAGAZINE, December 12, 1991
HOW THE TORIES SCREWED THE CREE
The unprecedented ex-communication notice issued against Montreal writer
John Goddard (see end of this article) is a result of Goddard's recent book
LAST STAND OF THE LUBICON CREE. In an outstanding piece of investigative
reporting, Goddard puts names and faces to the bureaucrats and
politicians -- federal and provincial -- who put boots to the Lubicon while
the oil companies took five billion dollars worth of crude out of the
Lubicon's ancestral lands.
The Lubicon Indians have never signed a treaty with Canada and hence have
never received reserve land, though they continued to live in the Lubicon
Lake area in northern Alberta. In 1940 the Indian Band was on the point of
recognition but a notorious Indian Affairs official, Malcolm McCrimmon,
intervened to strike out most of the Band members on the grounds they had
no right to be considered Treaty Indians. This was consistent with
McCrimmon's desire to minimize government obligations and foreshadowed the
tactics taken some 50 years later by Roger Tasse, a former deputy minister
of justice, hired by the Department of Indian Affairs to negotiate with the
Lubicon.
For most of the intervening years the Lubicon were generally ignored by
Ottawa and the Alberta government; they lived primarily from hunting and
trapping and their land was thought to have no great value. Lubicon
attempts to have a reserve established were easily shunted aside. What
changed all this and pushed the Lubicon to centre stage was the great
Alberta oil boom and the discovery that the land the Lubicons trapped and
hunted was the repository of billions of dollars of oil. This might have
been expected to accelerate progress to get a reserve established so that
the Lubicons, like the Samson Indians, could benefit from the revenues.
But that is not the Alberta way.
LUBICON PLUNDER
The Alberta way, as Goddard explains, is to have the low-lifes who run the
province's politics lie and cheat their way out of making any commitments
to the Indians while the oil companies get on with plundering the Indians'
land. In the process, oil trucks force Indian cars into the ditch,
caterpillar tractors deliberately bury Indian trap lines, the trapping and
hunting economy is destroyed and the Lubicon devastated by TB, violent
deaths and escalating social breakdown. In Alberta, it only remained to
wait for the Indians to attempt to resist so that helicopters, armed police
and attach dogs could be sent in to deal with the unruly savages.
The period Goddard investigates is the time when the motley collection of
pig farmers, used car salesmen, wacko racists and arch-goniffs who make up
the Alberta Conservative party arrived in Ottawa to help their Quebec
brothers make Canada the great country it is today. Key to the success of
the Alberta strategy was the willingness of their friends in the federal
government to turn a blind eye while the oil industry boys got on with a
nice bit of old-fashioned sodomy.
The deal was easily arranged since for much of the time the Deputy Prime
Minister was none other than good ol' boy Don Mazankowski, the Edmonton
used car salesman. The Indian Affairs Minister was Alberta's other
intellectual, Bill McKnight. McKnight and "Maz" had every opportunity to
keep the feds in check, comparing notes not only in Cabinet but also at the
downtown pied-a-terre they share with Jack Shields. Shields, it will be
recalled, recently brought the House down with his use of the old-fashioned
term of Albertan affection, "Sambo", toward MP Howard McCurdy.
COLONIAL REDNECKS
One of the key figures in the Lubicon saga was Bruce Rawson. Formerly a
top Albertan civil servant, Rawson served as deputy minister at Indian
Affairs, 1985-87, and was viewed by many on the Lubicon side as being Maz's
hitman. Rawson's commitment to his native province was certainly never in
doubt. He commuted back to Edmonton on weekends before being rewarded with
a plum position as head of the Tories' $100 million Western Diversification
slush fund.
Rawson's reign coincided with David Crombie's term as Indian Affairs
Minister. Crombie attempted to bypass the colonial office rednecks who run
Indian Affairs and establish a number of independent initiatives to address
Indian problems. Crombie's efforts included the appointment of Davie
Fulton, justice minister under John Diefenbaker, as a special envoy to the
Lubicon. These activities created outrage in colonial office bunkers and
precipitated the quick departure of the diminutive Crombie to investigate
the Toronto waterfront.
Fulton's report offered support not only for claims for a reserve for the
Lubicon but also recommended millions of dollars in compensation. Clearly,
the feds needed a damage control measure. Crombie's exit ended Fulton's
role and the new minister, McKnight, brought in Tasse and dispatched him to
Little Buffalo to negotiate. Tasse immediately made it clear that he was
not prepared to accept the word of Lubicon Chief Bernard Ominayak regarding
who was or wasn't a band member. Many of those on the list, in Tasse's
view, were not status Indians. As for the charge that the destruction of
their traditional lands by the oil companies and the denial of reserve
lands were leading to cultural genocide, Tasse found no evidence. The
jolly Roger further offered his expert view on the hunting problems: "They
could have overhunted. You cannot kill and kill and kill." The effect oil
company activities had on the environment was clearly insignificant in
comparison to the surging Indian appetite.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST?
Tasse's unique insight into the nature of Lubicon problems was, alas,
short-lived. For awhile, the energetic Tasse had been able to serve Rawson
as negotiator with the Lubicon AND function as senior legal adviser to
Manitoba's Northern Flood Committee -- on the advice of one Ernie ("Ernie")
Hobbs (Franks passim, ad nauseum). The James Bay Cree leader, Billy
Diamond, pointed to the schizophrenic possibilities: Tasse advising Rawson
to resist Lubicon demands for justice while at the same time asking for
justice for the Manitoba Cree in the Northern Flood Agreement. In the end,
Tasse selflessly sacrificed his Ottawa clients and shortly afterwards moved
into the more familiar environment of vice-president of Bell-Canada,
subsequently reemerging to assist Byron Muldoon as Meech Lake went down the
tubes.
Clearly, Tasse's experience in Indian country impressed the people who
count most because he was one of the high-powered delegation sent to
Manitoba in 1990 to establish the price of Indian support for Meech Lake.
Others were less impressed. According to Goddard, "John van Tilborg, a
Dutch member of the European Parliament, had visited Little Buffalo and
dined with Roger Tasse in Ottawa, and said afterwards: "I was shocked.
Europeans have the impression that Canada is one of the few countries in
the world taking human rights seriously. Then you see what they did and
you are really shocked."
The Lubicon issue refused to go away. European groups and even the United
Nations Human Rights Committee became involved. Indian Affairs, with a new
DM, Harry Swain, formerly with the PCO and under the guidance of Deputy PM
Mazankowski, was pressured to find a face-saving formula.
In the heat of the 1988 election campaign, Muldoon made extravagant
promises and designated chief of staff Derek Burney to oversee
negotiations. The Lubicon showed little willingness to sign any deal which
would not provide substantial compensation for the damage they had
sustained. Talks collapsed.
Once again, the government's reaction was divide and rule. The first step
was to try to find a dissident Lubicon faction to throw out Chief Ominayak.
When that tactic failed the government invented a new group of Indians to
be known as the Woodland cree. The creation of the new band would be used
to stave off foreign criticism and to serve as a recruiting point for
picking off defeated and disillusioned Lubicon Band members.
To encourage the Lubicon to join the instant Band and accept the land and
financial settlement which Ottawa offered to the Woodland Cree, those who
arrived to vote on the deal were given a $50 cheque with a further promise
of $1,000 if the deal went through. (Even in the Indian Affairs
department's hour of triumph the opportunity for a little duplicity was too
tempting to be passed over. Indeed, a few days after accepting the deal,
the members of Canada's most unusual Indian Band were told the payments
would be deducted from their social assistance cheques).
Today, the Lubicon Cree are demoralized, their economy is bankrupt and the
widely-respected Ominayak struggles to regroup his forces.
* * * * *
October 25, 1991, Memorandum from Regional Director General of Indian
Affairs, Alberta Region, Garry Wouters, to All Directors in the Alberta
Region.
SUBJECT: John Goddard
John Goddard is a freelance reporter and has authored a book on the Lubicon
Lake Band's land claim which is scheduled for release November 12, 1991.
Mr. Goddard has lately requested information from staff of the Alberta
Region on subjects such as the Lubicon Lake Band and Woodland Cree Band.
Please be advised that effective immediately no staff are to provide
information to Mr. Goddard unless such requests are in writing and these
should be directed to Fred Drummie, Associate Deputy Minister.
Please advise Wayne Hanna if you receive such a call.