The history

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The Lubicon Cree Nation was missed by treaty negotiators who travelled Western Canada in the late 1800s seeking land surrenders from the Indigenous peoples.

In 1939, government agents returned to Lubicon territory and determined the people were entitled to a reserve. The following year the government agreed to set aside land for the Lubicon, but the Second World War knocked the land survey off the agenda and the promise of reserve land was never kept.

The Lubicon territory is rich in oil and other natural resources. In the 1950s, after Ottawa failed to secure a reserve for the Lubicon, the Alberta government claimed the area as its own.

In the 1970s, the Lubicon filed suit to assert their claim to the land ,and negotiations with Ottawa and the province about compensation commenced.

A decade of talks failed and the Lubicon reached their limit. In mid-October 1988, the band set up roadblocks to keep oil companies and other industry from removing the riches from Lubicon land. A few days later, however, Alberta received a court injunction to halt the peaceful protest. On Oct. 20, heavily armed RCMP officers, backed by helicopters and attack dogs, mounted an assault on the blockades, arresting 27 Lubicon supporters.

Don Getty, then-Alberta premier, and Lubicon Chief Bernard Ominayak agreed to meet, and on Oct. 22 a land claim settlement now known as the Grimshaw Accord was reached. It provided that 95 square miles of land would be transferred from the province to the federal government for the Lubicon.

With Alberta's part agreed it was up to the federal government to reach a settlement. In November 1988, then-prime minister Brian Mulroney, in the midst of an election campaign, agreed to renew negotiations with the band. Once re-elected, however, negotiations were called to a halt.

In 1989, through an obscure section of the Indian Act, the federal government created a new group called the Woodland Cree, which drew members from the main Lubicon nation. The government then offered to settle the land issue with this sub-group of Lubicon, offering each voting member a dividend of up to $1,000 if the settlement was passed. After the vote, the federal government clawed back the dividend money by reducing welfare payments collected by Woodland Cree band members.

By 1990 the provincial government had backed out of negotiations. International attention about the Lubicon claim had garnered support from many corners and industry doing business in the Lubicon territory was facing a backlash. Pulp and paper giant Daishowa was effectively harmed by an international boycott of its products.

In 1992, an independent citizens commission was established to review the Lubicon situation and recommend ways to move forward. In March 1993 the commission determined that both the province and Canada were not negotiating in good faith.

In the spring of 1993, the province promised to honor the Grimshaw Accord, but in 1995 withdrew the offer saying the accord was based on a particular number of Lubicon band members and that number had changed significantly since the agreement was reached.

Over the years the federal government continued to offer the same settlement package and because it did not recognize Lubicon self-determination the Lubicon continued to reject it.

In December 1996, negotiators tried three times to get the Lubicon to sign agreements-in-principle (AIP), which included an undertaking that the feds would settle items like economic development and self-government later in a second round of negotiations. The AIP proposals were rejected by the Lubicon.

Negotiations resumed in July 1998 and continued until late in 2003 despite an announcement in August 1999 that the Alberta government was accepting tenders for logging within a portion of the Lubicon traditional territory. The portion put up for tender surrounded the proposed 95 square mile Lubicon reserve area promised by Don Getty in the Grimshaw ccord, meaning logging companies could clear-cut up to the boundaries on the east, north and south sides of the agreed upon reserve.