Development on Lubicon land draws fire

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Lubicon Cree supporters in the environmental community and the province's Official Opposition are asking tough questions about an oil and gas project in northern Alberta.

A consortium of four oil companies obtained from the province the mineral rights to an area near Sawn Lake, which is near a Lubicon reserve and considered by the Lubicon people to be part of their traditional territory.

Federal treaty commissioners travelling across western Canada seeking land surrenders from Indigenous peoples in the early 20th century missed the Lubicon people. Since they never surrendered their land, they argue they have unextinguished Aboriginal title to the land. The 66-year-old Lubicon Lake land claim is still unresolved and no negotiations are currently underway to settle it at either the provincial or federal level.

Any development on the disputed lands is considered controversial by Lubicon supporters.

Deep Well Oil and Gas, the lead partner in the consortium, felled trees in an area where it intends to establish a drilling site. The Sierra Club and Greenpeace joined Chief Bernard Ominiak in urging the federal government to intervene. They've asked the feds to order an environmental assessment of the project and to uphold its fiduciary duty to protect the interests of the Aboriginal people of the area.

In a letter to Environment Minister Stephane Dion, Ominiak said the Alberta government's regulations are not taken seriously by the oil and gas industry.

"You should also know that the companies proposing a massive oil sands development at Sawn Lake were so certain they would have no difficulty obtaining approval from the [Alberta Energy and Utilities Board], they began clearing trees on their lease site and moving in a drilling rig before even applying to the AEUB for a license to drill a well in this area. That speaks to the seriousness with which these companies treat the AEUB approval process and its so-called environmental assessment," he wrote.

Alberta Liberal environment critic David Swann and sustainable resource development critic Bill Bonko went after the Klein government on that subject for four straight days in April. They repeatedly asked the government why Deep Well Oil and Gas was able to level trees in Lubicon territory without having applied for a well license from the AEUB, something required under Alberta's regulations.

After several ministers claimed not to be aware of the situation, Energy Minister Greg Melchin eventually confirmed in the legislature that Deep Well's application has "yet to come forward."

Then the opposition asked if licenses were required. Premier Ralph Klein said "yes."

"They just can't go in holus-bolus and start to raze the forests and drill," he added.

David Swann wanted to know how the minister could "assure Albertans that proper environmental protection exists when oil and gas companies are allowed to destroy natural areas without license or approval."

And the opposition asked specifically about Lubicon concerns.

"Since Guide 56, schedule 4 [of the AEUB regulations] states that consultation with the affected land stakeholders is required prior to development, why then were the Lubicon not notified about the loss of their traplines and hunting grounds," Bonko asked.

Specific questions about the bureaucratic processes that may or may not have been followed by Deep Well were consistently deflected by several government ministers who either claimed not to be familiar with the situation or promised to look into it.

As Alberta Environment Minister Guy Boutilier was being questioned by the opposition, he sent a message to the Lubicon people and their supporters. Boutilier told the legislature he was committed to "ensuring environment protection principles are always in place to protect the environment no matter what stakeholder is using the rich and valuable resource that Albertans own-and Albertans own the resource; no one else."

Kevin Thoms, a negotiator for the Lubicon council, said he's heard that assertion a lot from Albertans, inside and outside government.

"That's an attitude. It's not a reality. The issue is to try and resolve the dispute, not to try to move in and take the resources and tear up the lands before the dispute's settled," he said.

Rather than deal with the legitimate Lubicon land claim, the province is acting like there is no claim, and federal negotiators walked away from talks more than a year ago, he said.

"Lately, the federal government is saying they're going to appoint a negotiator but they haven't really done anything. They've been saying, 'We're ready to negotiate but we're not ready to negotiate because we haven't got a mandate for our negotiators.' The key things that are outstanding, from our side, is self-government and compensation. On both of those, the negotiators are saying they don't have any mandate to do anything different than what they've done before. Which is obviously enormously frustrating because we're ready to go but you need more than one party to negotiate," he said. "We're quite close if they can negotiate those items. We've done a lot of work. The question is, do they have the mandate to negotiate a full settlement or not?"

And the province won't sit down if the feds aren't at the table, he added.

"We haven't got anywhere with the province, in terms of negotiations, with the absence of the federal government. There are some issues we have bilaterally with them, such as wildlife management, but they haven't seen fit to negotiate with us seeing as how the feds aren't moving,"

he said. "Theoretically, we could do that but we do need the feds there to make a deal, there's no question. So ultimately they've got to get to the table. But it wouldn't hurt for Alberta to move a bit in the meantime. But they're moving in the opposite direction by leasing lands to big oil sands development."

Since the situation has remained unresolved for o long, Thomas said, many veteran officials who tried and failed to broker an agreement would face embarrassment if a deal was reached by others.

"One of the problems I think we have is there's some people in Ottawa who say, 'Well, you can't solve Lubicon. Let 'em rot.' That's not true. It is something that could be easily solved but they do have to have some kind of commitment to doing better than normal government programs and services that are readily available to somebody who hasn't even signed treaties," he said.

He suggested that Deep Well should take a close look at the experience of Diashowa before trying to force the issue.

The Japanese pulp and paper company discovered that the Lubicon supporters are influential and effective. Diashowa was persuaded to cease logging on Lubicon lands by a boycott of retail outlets that sold its products.

"It's stupid to have to have to repeat the same thing over and over again and go through these fights when people could try something different. Diashowa tried it; it didn't work. Why not try something different this time? Talk to the Lubicon in advance. It's not that difficult."

And the recent Haida and Taku Supreme Court of Canada decisions put more responsibility on provincial governments to conduct meaningful consultations with First Nations before moving forward with resource harvesting.

"The impact of that is really on the provincial government side in that they issued licenses without any consultation whatsoever. I'm not a big fan of the consultation idea just because I think it means they tell you before they screw you," Thomas said. "But they didn't even tell us. So I think there are legal grounds to have those leases cancelled. They were issued without consultation."

Thomas, like other First Nation rights activists, is talking to the people who invest in resource companies and attempting to change attitudes at that level in the hope they will influence the actions of the company managers and irectors.

"Some of these financing companies, as part of their due diligence, are looking at the question of consultation to say, 'Have the procedures been followed or not because otherwise, right or wrong, we may end up in all sorts of legal troubles we don't need,'" he said.