Lubicon Lake Indian Nation
Little Buffalo Lake, AB
403-629-3945
FAX: 403-629-3939
Mailing address:
3536 - 106 Street
Edmonton, AB T6J 1A4
403-436-5652
FAX: 403-437-0719
June 23, 1994
Following the March 20th mail-out on the Laboucan family initiative letters
poured in from across the country and around the world. Copies of selected
letters are attached for your information.
As a result of these letters Federal Indian Affairs Minister Ron Irwin has
now made clear in writing that the Woodland settlement will not be re-opened
effectively blocking the Laboucan family initiative since disgruntled
Woodlanders will not accept members of the Laboucan family unless they are
given more land and money. And TransCanada Pipeline President Gerald Maier
has made it clear in writing that TransCanada Vice President Bob Young "has
concluded his involvement with this matter". (The political lesson here is
an important one -- on both scores. Some kinds of actions -- and some kinds
of creatures -- simply cannot survive being exposed to the light of day.)
There has also been a Lubicon election in which Chief Ominayak's leadership
was aggressively challenged by essentially the same people who were earlier
being solicited to join the Woodland
Band -- re-directed, some believe, in much the same way as the 1989 effort
to politically overthrow duly elected Lubicon leadership was re-directed to
create the Woodland Band after it failed to accomplish its original purpose.
(As one might imagine under such circumstances voter participation in this
recent Lubicon election was high -- higher than any previous Lubicon
election. Chief Ominayak won handily with a two to one plurality squarely
putting to rest charges made as part of the Laboucan family initiative that
he no longer enjoys the confidence and support of the Lubicon people.)
However not all of the news is quite so simple, straightforward and up-beat.
Despite reassuring letters which Mr. Irwin is sending to Lubicon supporters
reaffirming his commitment to settle Lubicon land rights there's plenty of
reason for concern that his apparently good faith efforts are still being
effectively undermined by a combination of Federal officials and assorted
co-conspirators. In addition Provincial Native Affairs Minister Mike
Cardinal is responding to letters from concerned people with worrisome form
letters carefully crafted to hedge Provincial settlement commitments and to
create the kind of self-serving illusions characteristic of the Provincial
bureaucrats who originally helped author the plight of the Lubicons and then
subverted Premier Getty's efforts to resolve the matter. (One novel twist
to some of Mr. Cardinal's recent letters written to a number of people in
Europe is a little hand written supposedly personal note from Mr. Cardinal -
- a form hand-written personal note at the bottom of a form letter if you
will -- suggesting darkly that "there are two sides to this issue" and
offering to give people from Europe "a free education" if they come to
Alberta. (Attempting to take Mr. Cardinal up on his offer of "a free
education" some Swiss journalists recently asked for a meeting with him to
discuss the Lubicon situation. Mr. Cardinal was predictably unavailable to
be interviewed by the Swiss journalists.)
Mr. Irwin became Federal Indian Affairs Minister last November and moved
quickly to circumvent and/or cut out certain people who were generally
acknowledged to be impediments to the objectives he wished to pursue --
including a settlement of Lubicon land rights. Some of the people everybody
knew had to cut out or at least circumvented were Mr. Irwin's Deputy
Minister Danny Goodleaf and his Associate Deputy Minister Rick Van Loon --
both of whom were appointed by the previous Mulroney Government, both of
whom are highly political and both of whom were closely associated with
Mulroney Government dirty tricks. Others everybody knew had to go were a
Federal Justice Department lawyer and long-time professional obstructionist
named Ivan Whitehall and a Calgary lawyer named Brian Malone (whom the
Mulroney gang originally appointed supposedly to negotiate Lubicon land
rights and then used to help create the new Woodland and Loon River Bands).
Serious tensions between Mr. Irwin and his senior officials have been a
matter of public knowledge from the beginning of his tenure with periodic
reports that Mr. Irwin is winning the struggle for control but considerable
evidence that it's not that simple. Malone was given his walking papers by
Mr. Irwin in early December but he didn't walk any farther than the Federal
Department of Justice where he continues his involvement with the Lubicon
issue working in tandem with Justice Department lawyer Whitehall. Similarly
Whitehall has been pronounced "history" by Mr. Irwin on a number of
occasions but Whitehall has been pronounced "history" by several of Mr.
Irwin's Ministerial predecessors all of whom are of course long since gone
while Mr. Whitehall is still carrying on -- and in fact still doing the very
things which have prompted so many to conclude rightly that he's a major
impediment to settling anything.
As an alternative to the other-directed gang of miscreants he inherited from
the Mulroney Government Mr. Irwin proceeded to identify a number of
hopefully non-aligned, mid-management Indian Affairs bureaucrats working in
Regional Indian Affairs offices around the country upon whom he might depend
to carry forward the various initiatives which he wished to pursue -- like
settlement of Lubicon land rights. Clearly Mr. Irwin intended by this
approach to evolve a new bureaucracy more responsive to his direction out of
people in the current bureaucracy -- not a bad strategy but one which
Machiavelli could have told Mr. Irwin requires careful planning, precise
timing and immediate follow-through once begun. (Having dumped Malone in
early December, however, Mr. Irwin didn't get around to identifying someone
in the Alberta Regional Office to deal with Lubicon land rights until the
middle of February -- and he didn't move to actually give that person an
appropriate mandate until the middle of March -- by which time Mr. Irwin had
predictably been bamboozled, spun around, set-up, tripped-up and
outmaneuvered by the very people he sought to circumvent or cut out.)
Calgary-based Malone officially "resigned" as Lubicon negotiator on December
21st. However on December 16th -- well after all concerned knew Mr. Irwin's
intention to cut him out -- Malone was in Ottawa meeting with Justice
Department lawyer Whitehall and with Indian Affairs Claims Director John
Sinclair agreeing that Malone would "continue as agent of the Attorney
General for Canada (re: Lubicon Land Claim and Litigation)...(and that he
would)...be available...to assist in the preparation of a (related)
memorandum to Cabinet". (Also meeting with Departmental officials in mid-
December was another Calgary-based lawyer named Bob Young. Young was in
Ottawa in mid-December meeting with Deputy Minister Goodleaf to discuss the
Laboucan family initiative -- something else which Mr. Irwin neither
approved nor supported. Thus there were notably two lawyers both from the
oil capital of Canada meeting in far off Ottawa with senior officials of the
Department of Indian Affairs about things known to be contrary to the new
Minister's wishes at the very same time that Mr. Irwin was moving to try and
assume control of his new Ministry -- try computing the odds of all of that
happening simultaneously by mere coincidence.)
Moreover the shift of Malone over to the Department of Justice to assist
with Lubicon "litigation" and to help draft "a memorandum to Cabinet" was
remarkably prescient on the part of Messrs. Whitehall, Malone and Sinclair -
- if it wasn't in fact part of a deliberate plot on their part to subvert
Mr. Irwin. Mr. Irwin would not learn until the following April that the
"lead role" in handling the Lubicon file would "have to be taken over by
Justice because (supposedly) the case is before the courts" -- Lubicon
"litigation" ala Mr. Malone's Justice Department mandate if you will despite
the fact that there's been nothing directly pertaining to Lubicon land
rights before the Canadian courts since 1988. Nor would Mr. Irwin learn
until the following April that the pivotal "memorandum to Cabinet" regarding
how to proceed with negotiation of Lubicon land rights would therefore have
to be drafted by people at Justice just as envisioned by Whitehall, Malone
and Sinclair the preceding December -- despite the fact that the Minister of
Indian Affairs has always carried the lead role in negotiation of Lubicon
land rights even when the issue of Lubicon land rights was actively before
the Canadian courts.
Thus apparently having sized-up the new Minister and decided upon a strategy
to end-run him -- Whitehall, Malone and their colleagues at Indian Affairs
commenced their campaign to variously impugn Mr. Irwin's judgment and
consequently develop the basis for arguing within the Federal bureaucracy
and politically that responsibility for playing the "lead role" in handling
the issue of Lubicon land rights should be transferred to their pre-prepared
base at the Justice Department. Insight into this campaign can be gleaned
from the reaction of Messrs. Goodleaf, Van Loon and Departmental Specific
Claims Director Rem Westland when Mr. Irwin confronted them in early April
over their scandalous handling of the Lubicon situation. Messrs. Goodleaf,
Van Loon and Westland met Mr. Irwin head-on telling him that there is no
existing Governmental mechanism which can handle a Lubicon settlement. They
told him that the Lubicons are demanding a settlement worth $200 million
dollars. They told him that a $200 million dollar settlement is worth
several times more than other recent settlements. They demanded to know
where he is going to get $200 million. And they demanded to know how he is
going to justify a Lubicon settlement worth several times more than other
recent settlements. (Notably these phoney allegations and arguments by
senior Federal officials are based on the same misleading information and
analysis of recent settlements given to Mr. Getty by senior Provincial
officials in November of 1989 -- allegations which Mr. Getty rejected after
discussing them with Chief Ominayak and realizing that the numbers given to
him had been deliberately misrepresented to create purposefully false
impressions.)
On February 10th Mr. Irwin's personal staff identified candidates from the
Regional Office to do the necessary follow-up on the Minister's February
18th meeting with the Lubicons. One Regional Office official was selected
by February 17th and asked to travel with Mr. Irwin to the February 18th
meeting. This person was then widely presumed by people in both levels of
Canadian Government to be the Minister's choice for new Lubicon negotiator
and an attack on his credentials and objectivity predictably began
immediately as part of the continuing campaign to impugn Mr. Irwin's
judgment and consequently further support the argument that responsibility
for playing the "lead role" in handling the issue of Lubicon land rights
should be transferred to the little bunch conveniently entrenched over at
the Justice Department waiting to receive it.
On February 18th Mr. Irwin asked Chief Ominayak for written proposals on how
to proceed with Lubicon negotiations. He promised to respond within a few
days of receiving the Chief's proposals.
On March 1st Chief Ominayak faxed Mr. Irwin Lubicon negotiation proposals.
Receipt of Lubicon negotiation proposals was confirmed by Mr. Irwin's office
that same day. Consistent with their discussion during the February 18th
meeting the Chief asked that the Minister appoint a negotiator:
1.) "not known to be involved in past and current efforts to
destroy Lubicon society";
2.) "willing and technically able to work with (the Lubicon people)
to develop ways and means of accomplishing legitimate Lubicon
objectives rather than acting as a political adversary
continually trying to outmanoeuvre, discredit and defeat (the
Lubicon people);
3.) "who understands the issues and knows the people, programs and
back alleys of the bureaucracy;
4.) "who reports directly to (Irwin);
5.) "with sufficient status, authority and political support to
deal effectively with the Province and private sector, obtain
necessary cooperation from Departmental officials, put a stop
to the counterproductive actions of Federal officials and
agents and survive the forces that in the end undermined
Messrs. Connelly, Munro, Fulton, Crombie and Getty". (John
Munro was a Federal Indian Affairs Minister under a previous
Liberal Government who tangled unsuccessfully with Whitehall
and Co. in an effort to settle Lubicon land rights -- taking
the position that he had a responsibility as Minister to hear
but not necessarily follow Whitehall's legal advice. Bob
Connelly worked for Munro and made an agreement with the
Lubicon people in support of Mr. Munro's Lubicon settlement
initiative regarding the confidentiality of jointly prepared
Lubicon genealogy information which was promptly breached by
Whitehall giving that information to an overtly antagonistic
Alberta Provincial Government -- Whitehall taking the revealing
position that the agreement which Connelly made with the
Lubicons on Mr. Munro's behalf was not binding on Whitehall.
Fulton is of course the Honourable E. Davie Fulton -- who
rightly had little use for Whitehall's obstructionist views but
who along with many others underestimated the forces
represented by Whitehall. David Crombie was the Conservative
Indian Affairs Minister appointing Mr. Fulton who was overtly
subverted by his own Deputy Minister Bruce Rawson with Rawson
announcing during one particulary notable meeting that "Fulton
is through and Crombie is irrelevant". And Getty is ex-Alberta
Premier Don Getty who also made an apparently sincere but
ultimately unsuccessful effort to wrest control of the handling
of the continuing Lubicon tragedy away from those largely
responsible for it and who was in the end subverted by the same
bunch of Provincial officials currently drafting letters for
Provincial Native Affairs Minister Mike Cardinal.)
Regarding the substance of the negotiations the Chief proposed to start with
well known and detailed Lubicon settlement proposals as up-dated by the
jointly agreed independent cost assessor.
Regarding issues which cannot be resolved through negotiation the Chief
proposed that such issues be referred to the independent three person
tribunal originally put forward by Premier Getty -- and that the decisions
of this three person independent tribunal be binding on the parties and not
appealable to the Canadian courts. (The independent three person tribunal
originally put forward by Premier Getty would consist of one person selected
by the Canadian Government, one person selected by the Government of the
Lubicon people and a third person selected by the first two.)
On March 7th the Lubicons received a phone call from Mr. Irwin's office
asking that Lubicon proposals be re-faxed because some of the lines in the
earlier fax communication were blurred and couldn't be read.
On March 18th Mr. Irwin was scheduled to meet with officials of the Alberta
Regional Office "to talk about the Lubicon letter (on re-starting
negotiations) and how to approach things". However the meeting was
cancelled at the last minute. Instead a decision was somehow taken to send
the Lubicons a letter acknowledging receipt of Lubicon negotiation proposals
and "to set up an internal committee to look at the process".
Three days later -- on March 21st -- Malone wrote to Whitehall "confirm(ing)
the scope of (Malone's) current engagement as agent of the Attorney General
for Canada (re: Lubicon Lake Land Claim and Litigation) as discussed with
(Whitehall) and John Sinclair on December 16, 1993 and with (Whitehall)
again yesterday". The letter continues "I (Malone) will be available to you
(Whitehall) ...to assist in the preparation of a memorandum to Cabinet and
any other support services thereafter that may be required". A noted copy
of Malone's letter was sent to Associate Deputy Minister of Indian Affairs
Rick Van Loon. (It was later learned that the "internal committee" to whom
the question of "process" had been referred consisted entirely of Associate
Deputy Minister of Indian Affairs Rick Van Loon.)
On March 22nd Malone wrote Whitehall again -- again with a noted copy going
to Associate Deputy Minister of Indian Affairs Rick Van Loon -- this time
basically denying for the record that the Laboucan family initiative "is
simply the result of an active and continuing conspiracy as between Mr.
Young and myself to destroy the balance of the Lubicon Band".
Obviously believing that it looked better if the Laboucan family initiative
started before election of the Chretien Government, instead of commencing
without the authority of the new Minister Irwin after Mr. Irwin had been
appointed, Malone claims in this March 22nd letter that talk about re-
opening Woodland negotiations to accommodate Lubicons who wished to join the
Woodland Band went back to October of 1992. (All other information,
including statements by Woodland Chief Billy Thomas and members of the
Laboucan family, indicates that the Laboucan family initiative in fact
started in December of 1993 -- well after Mr. Irwin became Federal Indian
Affairs Minister.)
Mr. Malone then proceeds in his March 22nd letter to try and characterize
the Laboucan family initiative as an initiative of the Woodland Band which
was neither encouraged nor supported by himself or by Federal officials -- a
flatly ludicrous proposition both in light of what's known about the
Laboucan family initiative and in light of what's known about who calls the
shots for the Woodland Cree Band.
Invoking the classic Eichmann defense that he was only following orders
Malone claims in this March 22nd letter that he participated in meetings
about re-opening Woodland negotiations on the instructions of then Associate
Deputy Minister Fred Drummie. Notably the people Malone admits meeting on
the instructions of Drummie are Woodland Advisor (and Bob Young's right-hand
man) Jack Tulley and Regional Office Official Roger Cardinal (who'd of
course also been heavily involved along with Malone in setting-up both the
Woodland and Loon River Bands).
Following his official resignation as Lubicon negotiator on December 21st,
Malone says, he "referred Mr. Tulley and subsequently Mr. Young to either
(DM) Dan Goodleaf or (Specific Claims Director) Rem Westland". (Westland is
also Roger Cardinal's "functional" supervisor.)
Malone concludes his March 22nd letter by advising Whitehall (and Van Loon)
"You should be aware that (Alberta Provincial) Premier Klein had a meeting
with the Woodland Cree after (meeting with) Mr. Irwin and has stated that
the province is prepared to deal with the dissidents as part of a re-opened
Woodland claim". (Presumably Malone is referring to the February 21st
meeting in High Prairie reported in the March 20th mail-out. Reports on
what transpired at that meeting have varied with members of the Laboucan
family basically saying the same thing as Malone but with Provincial
officials claiming that the Premier only agreed to meet members of the
Laboucan family. On balance it now appears likely that Provincial officials
lied and that Mr. Klein did agree to re-open Woodland negotiations during
his meeting with the Woodlanders on February 21st. It also seems likely
that Malone is trying to engage in a little realpolitik by including this
information is his "for the record" letter. However this time fancy
footwork avails Malone and Co. nothing -- Woodland negotiations can't be re-
opened unless Mr. Irwin agrees and under the circumstances Mr. Irwin isn't
likely to agree.)
Also on March 22nd Mr. Irwin and his Executive Assistant Brad Morse met with
Church leaders to discuss the Lubicon situation. Shortly after the meeting
began Mr. Irwin had to leave to participate in a vote in Parliament and he
did not return until shortly before the meeting ended. Most of the meeting
was therefore conducted by Mr. Morse on Mr. Irwin's behalf.
Mr. Morse told Church leaders that he understood the Woodland Cree had been
promised $150,000 for each Lubicon recruited. However, he said, this
promise will not be kept. He said that the message had gone to senior
officials that Mr. Irwin will neither support nor tolerate such behaviour.
(This report from no less a source than the Minister's right hand man
provides additional insight into the lengths to which the Mulroney gang was
prepared to go in order to undermine and subvert the Lubicon society -- and
the lengths to which holdovers from the Mulroney gang were still prepared to
go apparently on their own authority after the Mulroney gang was thrown out
of office. It also provides further insight into the pressures to which the
Lubicon people have been subjected -- after all not many societies could
long withstand unscrupulous two-legged skunks slinking around with bags of
money containing hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to buy up their
citizens.)
Mr. Morse told the Church leaders that Mr. Irwin had received Chief
Ominayak's proposals on re-starting negotiations and that they are
"developing a response". Notably he said that one of the things they're
doing is "trying to find out what agreements had been signed that might not
have been made public". (Just the fact of the Minister "trying to find out
what agreements had been signed that might not have been made public" speaks
volumes about the nature of the relationship between Mr. Irwin and his
senior officials.)
Mr. Morse also said that he and Mr. Irwin "were hoping for a more
straightforward letter (from the Lubicons)". He said that "the (Lubicon)
letter was not as clear as (they) were anticipating". He said that they
were "having to pick out parts and respond". He said that they "either have
to engage in further discussions or appoint someone". And he said that
"The Minister will make a formal response to the (Lubicon) letter
identifying a negotiator and clarifying the proposal for a process".
(Blaming the Lubicon letter for Mr. Irwin's failure to respond as promised
"within a few days" of receiving Lubicon negotiation proposals appears to be
a way of trying to disguise the real reason why an answer had not been
forthcoming as promised; namely, an internal struggle for control over the
Lubicon file. In fact there's nothing particularly complicated or indirect
about Lubicon settlement proposals -- a copy of which is attached.)
Towards the end of the meeting Mr. Irwin returned and provided further
insight into the way that his senior officials are seeking to keep him off
balance. He said "There is one pot of money for the Lubicons". He said
"It's already been largely doled out to Loon and the Woodland". He said
"That's a problem". (Needless to say that's not the way government finances
work. There's not "one pot of money for the Lubicons" which once expended
on other things is gone and no longer available. The real financial
questions faced by Government rather always pertain to priorities for money.
Moreover, as Church leaders pointed out to Messrs. Irwin and Morse, the
value of the resources being illegally expropriated from unceded Lubicon
lands in a single year far exceeds the amount required to settle Lubicon
land rights, most of the people on the Loon and Woodland Band lists aren't
Lubicons in any case, the individuals involved with the Woodland and Loon
Bands have in fact received little more than what they're entitled to
receive in their own right as status Indians in Canada anyway, and both of
these two new Bands -- who've supposedly now been given the money set aside
to settle Lubicon land rights -- were in fact specifically created by the
Canadian Federal Government to subvert Lubicon land rights.)
On March 28th Lubicon advisor Fred Lennarson learned from contacts in Ottawa
of an official Government report which listed "a Laboucan land in severalty
settlement in northern Alberta". Land in severalty is a little used
provision of Treaty 8 which provides reserve land apart from the main
reserve for members of an aboriginal society who do not wish to live with
other members of that aboriginal society. A land in severalty settlement in
northern Alberta involving someone named Laboucan almost certainly related
one way or another to the on-going Lubicon struggle.
Lennarson therefore phoned the Alberta Regional Office of Indian Affairs and
requested a copy of the report listing the "Laboucan land in severalty
settlement". Lennarson's call was directed to Regional Office Land Claims
Manager Roger Cardinal who pretended that he didn't know anything about any
such Government report, pretended that he'd never heard of Lennarson and
pretended that he couldn't "remember any Laboucan severalty settlement".
However, Cardinal said, he'd check and get back to Lennarson "through the
(Regional) Information Office".
Following Lennarson's call Cardinal immediately sought Justice Department
advise on what to do with Lennarson's legitimate information request. He
was tersely instructed "Don't tell Lennarson fuck all -- tell him to make
application under the Freedom of Information Act. " (Any request for
information under the Freedom of Information Act would of course have been
fought for any number of phoney reasons -- as earlier happened to John
Goddard when he was researching his book on the Lubicons -- in spite of the
fact that the existence of any Laboucan land in severalty agreement is
technically public information, and in spite of the fact that Lennarson is
an official agent of the Band to which this particular land in severalty
agreement was almost certainly attached.)
Not inclined to accept Roger Cardinal as the final authority on anything
Lennarson pursued information on the "Laboucan land in severalty settlement
in northern Alberta" through his own contacts. Shortly thereafter he managed
to obtain complete information on the "Laboucan land in severalty
settlement". As suspected the "Laboucan land in severalty settlement"
involved a member of the Lubicon Band named Henry Laboucan and 8 members of
Henry Laboucan's family.
Henry Laboucan is not a conventional Lubicon. His mother was a Lubicon --
his father was not. His mother left his father when he was a couple of
years old and moved in with a Lubicon man -- leaving the Lubicon man as well
a few years later and moving out of the traditional Lubicon territory
altogether in the late 1940s to re-locate at a place near Lesser Slave Lake
called Grouard.
In the early 1970s Henry Laboucan applied to the Federal Government to be
added to the Lubicon Band list based on a falsified statement that the
Lubicon man with whom his mother had lived for a few years when he was a
child was his natural father. The Lubicon man signed the statement for
cultural reasons -- in the Lubicon society the man who raises you is called
your father.
Following the Grimshaw Accord Henry Laboucan contacted Provincial MLA Larry
Shaben and asked about land in severalty. At that time Henry Laboucan
believed that a Lubicon settlement was close, he was a member of the Lubicon
Band and he didn't want to live on a Lubicon reserve at Lubicon Lake. He
wanted to live where he had lived most of his life -- at Grouard.
Larry Shaben referred Henry Laboucan's request for land in severalty to the
Provincial negotiating team. The Provincial negotiating team referred Henry
Laboucan's request for land in severalty to the Federal negotiating team.
Federal negotiators Whitehall and Malone brought Henry Laboucan's request
for land in severalty to the negotiating table in December of 1988.
In a particularly memorable performance Whitehall advised the Lubicon
negotiating team of Henry Laboucan's request for land in severalty.
Whitehall said firmly that there would never be any land in severalty
settlements.
First of all, Mr. Whitehall said, aboriginal land rights are not individual
rights but communal rights and the Canadian Government therefore never
negotiates aboriginal land rights with individuals -- only with organized
aboriginal societies. Consequently, he said, the Federal Government would
not meet with Henry Laboucan to discuss his land in severalty application.
Secondly, Mr. Whitehall said, if the Lubicon negotiating team brought
forward any land in severalty applications the Federal Government would
require that any applicants for land in severalty meet very strict
genealogical and historical tests -- which Henry Laboucan could not meet --
and if there were any Lubicons interested in land in severalty who could
meet such tests Whitehall said that he would personally guarantee that their
applications for land in severalty would "be tied up in court forever". He
repeated solemnly "There will never be any land in severalty". (Typically
Mr. Whitehall did not say that the Federal Government would seek a judicial
determination as to whether or not it had to honour its commitment under
Treaty 8 to provide land in severalty to people who wanted it. He rather
said that he would use the procedural rules of the court to subvert the rule
of law. That's a classic example of what Federal Justice Department lawyer
Ivan Whitehall considers to be protecting the public interest -- or at least
to be protecting the interests of the Federal Government. It's also the
type of thing about Whitehall that so appals true legalists like E. Davie
Fulton.)
At the time Whitehall and Malone brought Henry Laboucan's request for land
in severalty to the negotiating table Lubicon negotiators told Mr. Whitehall
that land in severalty was not part of their mandate from the Lubicon people
-- that Henry Laboucan was operating on his own. If and when the Lubicon
people included land in severalty in their mandate, Lubicon negotiators told
Whitehall, they'd let him know.
Federal negotiators deliberately broke down Lubicon negotiations in January
of 1989 with a "take-it-or-leave-it" offer to the Lubicons known in advance
to be unacceptable because it made no serious provision for the Lubicon
people to ever again become economically self-sufficient. Within two weeks
of the break-down of negotiations Malone working through a Regional Office
Indian Affairs official named Fred Jobin arranged a meeting with Henry
Laboucan in the little northern Alberta town of High Prairie.
Malone and Jobin met Henry Laboucan in High Prairie on February 10, 1989.
They told him that they could not negotiate a land in severalty settlement
with him -- only with an organized aboriginal society. However, they told
him, if he would work with them to help organize the overthrow of the duly
elected leadership and replace current Lubicon leaders with people a little
more amenable to the Government they would sign a settlement agreement with
these more amenable people which would provide him with land in severalty.
(Although Henry Laboucan would soon become frightened of overt involvement
with efforts to overthrow duly elected Lubicon leaders and would personally
withdraw from that particular initiative -- he was horrified when Government
spokesman identified him as the leader of a supposed "dissident group" of
Lubicons -- this initial contact with him was the genesis of the infamous
Woodland Cree Band. For more details on creation of the Woodland Cree Band
see the attached Saturday Night article by John Goddard entitled "A Helping
Hand".)
Frightened away from the Government organized effort to overthrow the duly
elected Lubicon leadership by reporters who asked him about his role in it,
Henry Laboucan nevertheless continued to pursue land in severalty at Grouard
for himself and members of his family. To that end he hired a Government
endorsed lawyer named Jerome Slavik -- one of two lawyers considered by the
Federal Government to set up the Woodland Cree Band -- but neither level of
Canadian Government was much interested in talking about Henry Laboucan's
land in severalty application until recently.
Henry Laboucan's land in severalty application was received on March 8, 1989
-- less than a month after the February 10th meeting in High Prairie.
However it was not accepted for negotiation until April 30, 1991, and not
much happened with it until near the anticipated fall of the Mulroney
Government when on July 6, 1993 it was slammed through by Malone, Slavik and
Provincial official Ken Boutillier -- presumably in a last ditch "cost is no
obstacle" effort to do as much damage to the Lubicon society as possible
before the Mulroney gang was thrown out of office. (Knowing how terribly
unorthodox and inappropriate a settlement it is Federal officials and
Boutillier both modestly give Slavik credit for pushing through the Laboucan
land in severalty settlement. But that's not credible. Such a thing could
not conceivably have happened without the full and enthusiastic support of
both levels of Canadian Government. Moreover Slavik doesn't push Boutillier
into anything. He does what he's told by Boutillier with whom Slavik has
enjoyed a long-term and mutually advantageous relationship.)
Unlike any land in severalty settlement in the history of the country -- and
contravening all applicable Federal Government policy -- the Henry Laboucan
land in severalty settlement is part of a master settlement with the Lubicon
people which has yet to be achieved. One Departmental official nervously
explained that "The rest of the Lubicon settlement will catch up when a
master Lubicon settlement is signed". (Needless to say this approach stands
the historic process on end. Always before land in severalty settlements
have been part of a master settlement with an organized aboriginal society -
- not the other way around. In addition there's the legal problem of the
nature of aboriginal rights as communal rights instead of individual
rights -- although the Lubicons have long since learned that people with no
integrity or respect for the rule of law are always capable of finding some
creative way to do whatever the hell they please.)
Moreover the Henry Laboucan land in severalty settlement is not a land in
severalty settlement in traditional Treaty 8 terms at all. Rather it's a
straight cash buy out of aboriginal land rights -- more like the long since
discredited metis scrip used by the Government to supposedly extinguish
aboriginal land rights at the turn of the century. Traditional land in
severalty settlements provide for tax-free inalienable Indian reserve land
under Federal jurisdiction away from the main reserve -- so-called family
reserves. Henry Laboucan was given a cash payout of $339,000 with which to
both pay Slavik's undoubtedly sizable legal fees and to purchase taxable
land in fee simple under Provincial Government jurisdiction -- an altogether
different matter. (What's not different, of course, is the spectre of
Malone and Co. wandering about northern Alberta with bags of money
containing hundreds of thousands of tax payers dollars using that money not
for the legitimate purpose of settling unextinguished Lubicon land rights
but rather to finance their continuing efforts to tear Lubicon society
asunder.)
On April 13th Jerome Morin of the Assembly of First Nations asked Mr. Irwin
when Mr. Irwin would be responding to Lubicon negotiation proposals. Mr.
Irwin told Jerome Morin that "there is nothing (he) can do". Mr. Irwin said
that his "hands are tied". He said that "Justice has now taken over the
lead role because the case is before the courts".
Mr. Irwin then had to leave so he told Jerome Morin to discuss the details
with Brad Morse. Mr. Morse confirmed to Jerome Morin that "the lead role
has now been taken over by Justice because the case is before the courts".
Regarding why Mr. Irwin had not responded to Lubicon negotiation proposals
as promised Mr.Morse told Jerome Morin that "Lubicon proposals are
complicated and difficult to answer".
Jerome Morin had expected this response from Mr. Morse and was ready for it.
Briefed on Mr. Irwin's March 22nd meeting with Church leaders Jerome Morin
had requested and reviewed a copy of Lubicon negotiation proposals. He was
therefore in a position to tell Mr. Morse that he'd read Lubicon negotiation
proposals and that he didn't see anything particularly complicated about
them or difficult to answer. He asked Mr. Morse what exactly Mr. Morse
considered so complicated and difficult to answer.
Mr. Morse didn't respond. (As indicated earlier Lubicon negotiation
proposals are attached so that people can read them and judge for themselves
whether they "are complicated and difficult to answer". If Mr. Morse's
problem really is that he's having a tough time with Lubicon negotiation
proposals -- rather than with Whitehall and Co. -- he might benefit from
people explaining Lubicon negotiation proposals to him and perhaps
suggesting an appropriate response.)
On April 20th the Lubicon Settlement Commission wrote Canadian Prime
Minister Jean Chretien asking for a meeting to discuss Commission settlement
recommendations. They reminded Mr. Chretien of the letter he had written
the Commission the previous June while he was still Leader of the Official
Opposition. A copy of Mr. Chretien's June 30, 1993 letter to the Lubicon
Settlement Commission is attached. It reads, in part:
"...with negotiations suspended since 1989 (the Liberal Party of
Canada believes) that the government has reneged on its fiduciary
(trust) responsibility to the Lubicon people".
"Time is wasting. As a start, (the Liberal Party of Canada)
believe(s) the government should proceed with recommendation number
five of the Lubicon Settlement Commission report to hold all
royalties in trust and withhold leases and permits on traditional
Lubicon lands -- unless approved by the Lubicon.
"Moreover, future negotiations should reflect the intent of (Lubicon
Settlement Commission) recommendation number eight, asserting that
the extinguishment of Aboriginal rights must not be a condition of
settlement.
"While it is doubtful that the current (Conservative) government
possesses the will to do so, you can be assured that the Liberals
will continue to press the Conservatives to respond to the
recommendations of the Lubicon Settlement Commission and resume
negotiations.
"We (the Liberals) support the swift resolution of all claims, and
consider the Lubicon claim to be a priority".
Also on April 20th Mr. Irwin wrote to an individual member of the Lubicon
Settlement Commission named Menno Wiebe responding to an earlier letter from
Rev. Wiebe. Mr. Irwin's April 20th letter to Rev. Wiebe seems strangely at
odds with what Messrs. Irwin and Morse told Jerome Morin on April 13th about
Mr. Irwin's "hands (being) tied" since "the lead role has now been taken
over by Justice because the case is before the courts". Mr. Irwin wrote, in
part:
"The resolution of this claim is one of my top priorities.
"I have recently received a new proposal from Chief Ominayak that
follows upon our (February 18th) discussions. (The "new proposal"
which Mr. Irwin indicates he "recently received" from Chief Ominayak
is of course the one pertaining to re-starting negotiations which
Chief Ominayak faxed to Mr. Irwin nearly two months earlier and
which Mr. Irwin originally promised to answer "within a few days".)
"I expect to be in a position to get back to (Chief Ominayak) in the
near future to discuss the options the government is prepared to
consider to resolve this matter".
"I am confident that a solution acceptable to the Lubicon Lake First
Nation and the people of Canada can be found for this claim. I
believe that it is now time to conclude old business and move on to
other issues of importance".
Sometime toward the end of April Messrs. Irwin and Morse realized that
they'd been snookered by Whitehall into believing that "the lead role had to
be taken by Justice since the case is (supposedly) before the courts".
Consequently they moved to try and re-assert Mr. Irwin's rightful
jurisdiction over the Lubicon file. However they were apparently still
being outmanoeuvred. While Mr. Irwin made very clear that settlement of
Lubicon land rights is one of his priorities as Minister of Indian Affairs -
- and that he has no intention of ceding over-all responsibility for the
Lubicon file -- Whitehall and Co. somehow managed to retain "responsibility
for preparing the cab doc". (The cabinet document or "cab doc" provides the
information upon which the Federal Cabinet would be making a decision as to
how to proceed with negotiation of Lubicon land rights. If that "cab doc"
prepared by Whitehall and Malone contained the same type of deliberately
misleading information and analysis about Lubicon demands that Mr. Irwin's
senior officials had presented to him during their "show-down meeting" in
early April -- as would almost certainly be the case -- the resulting
Cabinet decision would of course be foreordained and Mr. Irwin's latitude
for negotiating a settlement with the Lubicons would be sharply
circumscribed.)
The struggle for control over the Lubicon file continued into the first week
of May when it was reliably reported that an accommodation had been reached
which provided for the Lubicon "cab doc" to be jointly drafted by the
Department of Indian Affairs and the Justice Department -- whatever that
means. If the Department of Indian Affairs is represented by Associate
Deputy Minister Rick Van Loon, for example, the result would not likely be
much different than if the "cab doc" is drafted only by Whitehall and
Malone. (In any case "co-drafting the cab doc" with people like Whitehall
is pretty dicey business. One cannot help but be reminded of the Meech Lake
Constitutional talks during which negotiated clauses which didn't serve the
purpose of the Mulroney gang were simply left out of resulting documents.)
On May 13, 14 and 15 the Liberal Party of Canada met in Convention in Ottawa
and, among other things, passed a unanimous resolution calling upon the
Liberal Government of Canada to settle Lubicon land rights. The Lubicons
were the only Indian Band in Canada specifically mentioned in the dozens of
resolutions passed at the Convention. The Lubicon resolution reads:
"BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Liberal Party of Canada urges the
Government of Canada to resolve the Lubicon Cree Land and
Compensation Claim as a top priority within a mutually acceptable
time-frame or, if necessary, by the independent claims commission
referred to in the 1992 Priority Resolutions on Treaties and Claims
and the 1993 Aboriginal Platform (on which the Liberals campaigned
successfully during the last Federal election)."
On May 16th Mr. Irwin wrote Chief Ominayak finally acknowledging receipt of
Chief Ominayak's March 1st negotiation proposals. Mr. Irwin wrote:
"The material you provided to me, both at the meeting and in your
letter, will be of assistance when my colleague, (Justice Minister)
the Honourable Allan Rock, and I discuss in the near future with the
Cabinet possible options on how to proceed. Like you, I hope that
this matter can be finalized in a relatively short period of time
given that most of the technical work with respect to your claim has
been completed."
Mr. Irwin's May 16th letter was received on May 19th. Chief Ominayak
responded to it in a letter dated May 21st. The Chief wrote that he hoped
"the next stage of the process you describe in your May 16th letter will
take a little less time than it took for you to acknowledge receipt of our
written proposals for re-starting negotiations". He indicated concern over
the manoeuvring known to be going on in the background saying that the
Lubicon people "see no reason why you should cede your rightful authority as
Minister of Indian Affairs essentially to this same bunch only re-positioned
from their previous base in the Department of Indian Affairs to a new base
at Justice (where Whitehall and Co. will undoubtedly seek to deceive and
manipulate Mr. Rock as they have sought to deceive and manipulate successive
Indian Affairs Ministers going back to at least John Munro)." Lastly Chief
Ominayak expressed concern over the content of a "cab doc" drafted by
Whitehall and Malone especially in light of the "demonstrably incorrect
information about recent settlements which (their colleagues) Goodleaf, Van
Loon and Westland provided to (Mr. Irwin) during (Mr. Irwin's) meeting with
them in early April".
Mr. Irwin's office acknowledged receipt of Chief Ominayak's May 21st letter
on June 2nd.
Also on June 2nd Co-Chair of the Lubicon Settlement Commission Jacques
Johnson received information that "the Lubicon cab doc won't be ready for
over a month, won't be ready for discussion by Cabinet this session (of
Parliament) and won't be ready for discussion by Cabinet until the fall
session". This information was provided by Alyn Morris in Anne McLellan's
office.
Anne McLellan is the Federal Minister of Natural Resources. She is also
Father Johnson's Member of Parliament. Father Johnson and the members of
the Lubicon Settlement Commission had been seeking a meeting with Anne
McLellan on an urgent basis because they too are concerned about the content
of a "cab doc" drafted by Whitehall and Co. and wanted to provide Minister
McLellan with credible information on the Lubicon situation independent of
the type of information likely contained in the worrisome "cab doc".
Essentially the message that came back to Father Johnson from Anne
McLellan's office is that there's no need for an early meeting -- that the
Lubicon "cab doc" won't be ready for over a month and Cabinet won't be
considering it until the fall.
Needless to say a "cab doc" could technically be ready tomorrow -- presuming
agreement on its content. That the Lubicon "cab doc" won't be ready until
too late to be considered by Cabinet during the current session of
Parliament suggests that there isn't agreement on content -- that the
internal struggle continues basically unresolved -- presumably between a
hopefully sincere Ron Irwin and those who are historically responsible for
the continuing Lubicon tragedy and who for whatever reason or reasons don't
want to see a settlement.
(Continued in Part Two)