Lubicon Struggle Continues...
Friends of the Lubicon
P.O. Box 444, Stn. D, Etobicoke, ON
Canada, M9A 4X4
Tel: 416-763-7500, Fax: 416-535-7810
Email: fol@tao.ca
Web: www.tao.ca/~fol
August 27, 2003
Linked below is a copy of an article from the July 5th
edition of the Edmonton Journal on a recent court decision
which wrongly found that some people had supposedly been
improperly denied the right to vote in the 1999 Lubicon
election for Chief and Council. Like the court decision,
the article contains significant factual errors and badly
distorts the truth.
The article prints easily disproved allegations that the
traditional Lubicon practice of electing Lubicon leaders
in open community meetings "may intimidate voters and allows
the current (Lubicon political) regime to identify and discriminate
against those who dare vote against it". That's a fairly
common allegation about Indian elections anymore -- often
associated with white politicians of a particular stripe
-- and it nicely fits certain racist stereotypes about Indians
and Indian politicians. Whatever the merit of the allegation
elsewhere, it is not true in the Lubicon situation where
everybody knows who supports what political candidate anyway,
and where those being used to make the public allegation
were in fact candidates in previous Lubicon elections who
it can readily be shown receive the full range of admittedly
limited Lubicon programs and services.
Notably the Edmonton Journal did not check the easily
disproved allegations before printing the article. Nor did
it print the July 9th letter to the editor (linked below)
pointing out the demonstrable inaccuracies in the article
-- something which one would think a supposedly responsible,
mainline establishment newspaper would have an ethical and
professional responsibility to do (and something which Lubicon
supporters might consider writing their own letters to the
editor of the Edmonton Journal about).
Moreover the Edmonton Journal article is written in such
a way so as to imply that the court decision was just announced
when in fact the decision was announced on May 14th -- nearly
two months earlier. Why the Edmonton Journal would print
such an irresponsible, inaccurate article a couple of months
after the decision was announced -- and not print a correction
of factual errors in it -- is a good question.
The reason the Edmonton Journal printed this irresponsible,
inaccurate article at this time is likely related to the
fact that the election challenge which led to the court
decision has been orchestrated from the very beginning by
two non-aboriginal ex-senior Canadian government officials
and has been financed by one of them -- or, more accurately
-- since it's unlikely that either of these jokers would
be spending their own personal time and money putting together
a complicated, expensive, four-year-long legal challenge
of the election of a small, northern Alberta aboriginal
society -- money to fund the election challenge has been
channeled through one of them. (These two non-aboriginal
ex-senior Canadian government officials would undoubtedly
be capable of calling the court decision to the attention
of the Edmonton Journal at a tactically propitious time
and apparently also have some ability to prevent the printing
of a correction of factual errors -- or at least somebody
does.)
Officially billed as advisors to those challenging the
election, it is a matter of record before the court that
ex-federal Indian Affairs Regional Director General Jack
Tully and ex-provincial Native Secretariat Executive Director
Henry Thiessen attended more meetings of the group challenging
the election than any of the group's supposed leaders. It
is also a matter of record before the court that Mr. Tully
is responsible for election challenge expenses including
the rental of vehicles and hotel rooms and meeting rooms
for the group obviously fronting the election challenge
for Mr. Tully's and Mr. Thiessen's real bosses. (Front group
leaders acknowledge that Mr. Tully is paying their costs
but claim under oath that they don't know where he's getting
the money to pay their expenses -- suggesting either that
front group leaders aren't too smart or that they don't
take the oath to tell the truth very seriously.)
Jack Tully is currently an advisor to the government fabricated
Woodland Cree Band. The night before the 1999 Lubicon election
he rented rooms at the Traveler's Motel Hotel in Peace River
for a pre-election strategy meeting of front group members
and a lawyer who accompanied them to the election the next
day named Bob Roddick. Mr. Roddick is the lawyer who subsequently
spearheaded the election challenge.
Henry Thiessen also does work for the Woodland Cree Band.
In addition Mr. Thiessen was put forward as an "expert witness"
for Unocal at a hearing on construction of a sour gas plant
next to the proposed Lubicon reserve and for Daishowa's
effort to enjoin a consumer boycott of Daishowa's forest
products organized because Daishowa was threatening to clear-cut
unceded Lubicon lands. Mr. Thiessen was used by Unocal and
Daishowa to introduce historical and genealogical information
which made allegations of fact based on easily discounted
historical and genealogical speculation originally suggested
by more careful provincial researchers who were not themselves
prepared to make the leap from easily discounted speculation
to claimed statements of supposed fact. The intent of the
purposefully inaccurate historical and genealogical information
introduced by Mr. Thiessen was to support the fabricated
contention that the Lubicons don't have unceded aboriginal
rights to traditional Lubicon Territory.
Notably Mr. Thiessen has no known academic or other credentials
which would qualify him as an "expert witness" in any area
relevant to the evidence he introduced on behalf of Unocal
or Daishowa other than perhaps a known disregard for the
truth. (More recently Mr. Thiessen was caught trying to
fraudulently obtain Lubicon welfare records falsely claiming
that he was working for the Lubicons.)
Arrangements to pay the legal fees and expenses of the
lawyers representing the front group challenging the Lubicon
election are also noteworthy. It is a matter of record before
the court that the lawyers who've been working on this obviously
expensive, four-year-long legal election challenge claim
to be working on the basis of an agreement with front group
members that they will be paid with Lubicon funds if their
clients are successful in having the Canadian courts overturn
the traditional Lubicon election. How exactly this would
work is a mystery. Even if the Canadian courts had agreed
to overturn the traditional Lubicon election -- which didn't
happen -- and even if the Lubicons accepted that the Canadian
courts had the right and power to overturn a traditional
Lubicon election -- which is unimaginable -- there is no
money in the Lubicon budget to pay the legal costs of seeking
to have a traditional Lubicon election overturned by the
Canadian courts. (Lubicon supporters independently raised
the money to defend the traditional Lubicon election process
from the election challenge orchestrated by the two non-aboriginal
ex-senior Canadian government officials.)
Moreover overturning the traditional Lubicon election
in and of itself would clearly not elect front group members
and put them in a position to pay the legal costs of the
election challenge with Lubicon funds -- even if funds were
available for such a purpose. (After their clients' embarrassing
admission under oath that front group expenses were being
paid by ex-federal Indian Affairs Regional Director General
Jack Tully, front group lawyers clearly had to come up with
something in response to the predictable question of who's
paying their legal fees and expenses. This cockamamie, farfetched
explanation of how their legal fees and expenses are being
paid is apparently the best they could do.)
How front group lawyers ever thought a Lubicon election
challenge could succeed is another good question when the
majority of front group members either don't live in the
traditional Lubicon Territory (as required by Lubicon election
rules), don't meet the Lubicon election requirement that
Lubicon electors must be at least 18 years of age, are registered
members of other recognized Indian Bands (contrary to Lubicon
election rules), and/or didn't even attend the Lubicon election
where they allege they were improperly denied the right
to vote by a duly appointed, independent Lubicon Chief Election
Officer who never made a ruling on their eligibility to
vote.
Most likely front group lawyers didn't think they could
win. Most likely they just used the Canadian courts -- and
front group members -- to make untrue, politically motivated
allegations which their real clients -- the ones who are
undoubtedly paying their legal fees and expenses -- were
not prepared to make publicly themselves. (Another likely
calculated motivation behind the election challenge is to
put yet another drain on limited, already badly stretched
Lubicon financial and other resources.)
Those members of the front group which the Canadian court
specifically found were improperly denied the right to vote
were in fact properly denied the right to vote by a duly
appointed, independent Lubicon Chief Electoral Officer because
they'd earlier signed sworn affidavits saying they were
not Lubicons and had expressly refused to sign sworn affidavits
renouncing those earlier affidavits and affirming their
Lubicon membership. Although again not clear in the Edmonton
Journal article, it is this inexplicable, highly problematic
and worrisome ruling by the Canadian courts challenging
the conduct of a traditional Lubicon election by the duly
appointed independent Lubicon Chief Electoral Officer that
the Lubicons are appealing -- not the decision refusing
to overturn the election (which would have of course set
the Canadian courts on a major collusion course with aboriginal
people across the country over the issue of the jurisdiction
of the Canadian courts to overturn a traditional aboriginal
election).
BACKGROUND
This latest effort to subvert Lubicon society and undermine
the ability of the Lubicon people to effectively fight for
recognition and respect for Lubicon land rights can be traced
back to a 1995 news release issued by a Calgary-based "publicist"
closely associated with Alberta Provincial Premier Klein
named Wayne Bill. The news release invited members of the
media to attend a news conference at the plush Edmonton
Hilton -- complete with silver tea service and little sandwiches
with the crusts cut off -- to supposedly "hear the real
story about what the majority of the Lubicon Cree want".
In a manner strongly reminiscent of the slippery answers
one gets if one asks who's financing the recent Lubicon
election challenge, Mr. Bill initially told inquiring reporters
that Edmonton lawyers Karen Trace and John Gill had recruited
and paid him to organize the news conference. Asked by reporters
if this were true, however, Ms. Trace and Mr. Gill denied
that they'd recruited and paid Mr. Bill to organize the
news conference.
Mr. Bill then testily told reporters that it was none
of their damn business who'd recruited and paid him to organize
the news conference. He told reporters that his odd, curious,
suspicious and unexplained involvement in organization of
the news conference wasn't the story they were supposed
to be covering. He told them that the story they were supposed
to be covering was "what the majority of the Lubicon Cree
want". (Notably, Mr. Bill didn't even try to claim that
he'd been recruited and paid by the people on whose behalf
he claimed he had called the news conference. Guess that
just wasn't an answer that came readily to his mind even
under pressure from reporters to explain who was behind
the news conference.)
Lawyer Trace commenced the Wayne Bill news conference
with a statement about the purpose of the news conference.
She introduced a Lubicon named Billy Joe Laboucan. She claimed
that Billy Joe Laboucan "represents two thirds of the Lubicon
Nation". She said that Billy Joe Laboucan and the people
he represents want to form a new band called the Little
Buffalo Cree Band".
Billy Joe Laboucan then narrated a slick, professionally
prepared video contrasting dilapidated housing and other
community facilities in the Lubicon community of Little
Buffalo Lake with new housing and community facilities in
the Woodland Cree Band community of Cadotte Lake. He said
the people he represents "hope to do the same thing" as
the infamous, government-fabricated Woodland Cree Band.
Echoing a catchy but cryptic refrain previously expressed
by federal PR man Ken Colby, Billy Joe Laboucan attributed
lack of a Lubicon settlement to Lubicon leadership whom
he claimed lyrically "had become lost in their own rebellion".
Neither Ms. Trace nor Billy Joe Laboucan explained what
he meant by this un-Billy-Joe-Laboucan-like turn of phrase
that Lubicon leaders "had become lost in their own rebellion".
Neither did they mention that Billy Joe Laboucan had been
largely absent from Lubicon Territory for the previous fifteen
years or that he had run unsuccessfully for Lubicon Chief
the year before -- losing resoundingly to incumbent Lubicon
Chief Bernard Ominayak by a two-thirds plurality. Nor did
they indicate how Billy Joe Laboucan had somehow gone from
representing a third of the Lubicons a year before to now
supposedly representing two thirds of the Lubicons.
Asked by reporters about the questionable claim that he
represented two thirds of the Lubicons, Billy Joe Laboucan
said blankly "I don't know the math on that".
Jumping into the fray to try and help Billy Joe Laboucan
explain himself, as she did a number of times during the
news conference, Ms. Trace acknowledged that the claim that
Billy Joe Laboucan represented two thirds of the Lubicons
could not be substantiated. She said hurriedly "It comes
from our calculations". "As far as we can gauge", she said,
"it's about two thirds".
Ms. Trace then creatively blamed Lubicon Chief Bernard
Ominayak for Billy Joe Laboucan's inability to substantiate
how many people he (and she) supposedly represented. She
said Billy Joe Laboucan didn't know how many Lubicons he
represents because Chief Ominayak "is never prepared to
release membership numbers".
(The issue of Lubicon membership has been at the heart
of the Lubicon struggle nearly from the very beginning.
It is at the heart of Lubicon land negotiations and it is
at the heart of the recent Lubicon election challenge as
well. For years both levels of Canadian government have
been trying unsuccessfully to obtain the Lubicon membership
list -- the feds in order to apply their arbitrary and ever
changing criteria for determining Indian status and thereby
disenfranchise Lubicon members who don't meet those criteria
-- the province to try and develop exclusionary criteria
never before employed in determining aboriginal land rights
in order to be able to argue that for one phony reason or
another individual Lubicons on the Lubicon membership list
no longer retain unceded aboriginal land rights and therefore
can't be counted in determining reserve land quantum. Unprepared
to let openly antagonistic, clearly self-interested Canadian
government determine for them who their members are, the
Lubicons have refused to release their membership list and
insist that they have the right to determine for themselves
who their members are in the same way as did Indian Nations
in the past that negotiated treaty with the government of
Canada.)
Immediately following the 1994 election (which Billy Joe
Laboucan lost), it's known that Ms. Trace and Mr. Gill were
approached and asked to try and find grounds to challenge
that election. Unable to come up with grounds to challenge
the election, a novel strategy was devised to try and undermine
the credibility of duly elected Lubicon leadership and consequently
the ability of the Lubicon people to fight for recognition
of Lubicon land rights.
Ms. Trace told reporters at the Wayne Bill news conference
that the situation of her clients was not one of refusing
to accept that they lost a democratic election but rather
that losing a democratic election was somehow analogous
to "a divorce" and division of jointly owned property. She
announced "We are now at the separation stage". "Pending
this formal division", she said, "we have asked the Minister
to make room at the negotiating table (for her clients who'd
lost the election)". (It doesn't take a lot of imagination
to figure out what kind of role such people, under the direction
of their Canadian government handlers, would play at the
negotiating table.)
Referring to Billy Joe Laboucan's unsuccessful run for
Lubicon Chief the year before, a reporter asked "Can this
be described as sour grapes?"
Denying that this transparent effort to divide Lubicon
society was related to his losing the previous election,
Billy Joe Laboucan said "We don't have a problem with Chief
Ominayak's leadership for the Lubicons". Then, pretty clearly
revealing what he'd been promised for allowing himself to
be used in this way, Billy Joe Laboucan said "But we want
our own group and our own leadership (and of course recognition
of a new Band with its own reserve lands where he supposedly
would be Chief)".
Again jumping into the fray to try and help an obviously
in-over-his-head Billy Joe Laboucan explain the position
he was desperately trying to front for the people who were
cynically promising him his own Band, Ms. Trace said that
Billy Joe Laboucan and the people he represents "are not
fighting over the election". Rather, she said, "They don't
want to rule (the supporters of the duly elected Chief and
Council)". She said "They don't want (the duly elected Chief
and Council) to rule them". (Ms. Trace would of course be
laughed out of town if she proposed that provincial lands
and resources be partitioned between the supporters of the
people who won the last provincial election and the supporters
of those that lost merely because the people who lost didn't
want to be "ruled" by the people who'd won. That people
don't laugh her out of town when she makes such an outrageous
proposal with regard to aboriginal people is a sad commentary
on the extent of racism in Canada.)
The spokesmen for the Little Buffalo Cree Band front group
next announced that they'd sent a letter to the provincial
government demanding that "no decision be made on granting
of (reserve) land to the Lubicons until this matter (of
the division of Lubicon society) is resolved". (Provincial
refusal to transfer land under provincial jurisdiction back
to the federal government as per the Grimshaw Accord would
of course effectively block federal ability to settle Lubicon
land rights and constitute a major setback to successful
negotiation of Lubicon land rights.)
Shortly thereafter provincial representatives indicated
that the province would no longer honor the hard won 1988
Grimshaw Accord claiming, falsely, that the Grimshaw Accord
had been based on membership numbers and that, with government
fabrication of the Woodland Cree Band, government recognition
of the Loon River Band and now the emergence of this obviously
governmentally orchestrated Little Buffalo Cree Band, the
Lubicon society with whom the Grimshaw Accord had been negotiated
(supposedly) no longer exists.
The new government sponsored Little Buffalo Cree Band
front group then launched a legal action against the federal
government asking the court to force the federal government
to halt Lubicon land negotiations pending recognition of
the Little Buffalo Cree Band and agreement to full participation
of representatives of the Little Buffalo Cree Band in Lubicon
land negotiations. Documents filed as part of this legal
action, taken together with refusal on the part of members
of the front group to renounce statements made in those
documents, are what caused the duly appointed independent
Lubicon Chief Electoral Officer to rightly refuse to certify
the eligibility of certain members of the front group to
vote in the 1999 Lubicon election.
Materials filed on behalf of members of the Little Buffalo
Cree front group as part of this legal action against the
federal government say, among other things:
That the members of the front group are "a unique community
separate and apart from the Lubicon Lake community",
That the members of the front group "have always viewed
(themselves) as a community which stands apart from the
Lubicon Lake Band",
That "As with the Woodland Cree Band and the Loon River
Band, (the members of the front group) have always viewed
(themselves) as a distinct community from the Lubicon Lake
Indian Band",
That the members of the front group had therefore "formed
a Band called the Little Buffalo Cree Band", and
That the members of the front group "wish to assert (their)
right to have (their) own Band and to negotiate (their)
own treaty and land claim settlement".
(The Lubicon membership code expressly provides that persons
who would otherwise qualify for Lubicon membership "but
choose instead to become a member of either another Indian
Nation or a "Band" under the Indian Act ...shall not be
members of the Lubicon Lake Indian Nation". This clause
was originally urged by federal representatives to preclude
people being counted twice for reserve land entitlement.
It was added by the Lubicons after creation of the Woodland
Cree Band in order to clarify the status of people who would
otherwise qualify for Lubicon citizenship but who chose
instead to join the Woodland Cree Band. The exact language
used in this clause was deliberately chosen by the Lubicons
to reflect the Lubicon view that the Woodland Cree Band
might be a "Band" under the Indian Act but that it was certainly
not a legitimate Indian Nation in the traditional sense.)
The materials filed on behalf of the Little Buffalo Cree
Band front group as part of this legal action against the
federal government also falsely alleged that its members
did not receive services from the Lubicon Lake Nation despite
the demonstrable fact that over half of their number were
receiving welfare from the Lubicon Nation; despite the fact
that some of them, including Billy Joe Laboucan and members
of his family, received significant post secondary education
assistance from the Lubicon Nation; and despite the fact
that some of them, including Billy Joe Laboucan, were employed
by the Lubicon Nation. (Some members of the front group,
including Billy Joe Laboucan, had in fact also earlier run
successfully for Lubicon Council, had served as members
of the Lubicon Council and had signed sworn affidavits which
say, consistent with all other historical and genealogical
information, that "The Lubicon Lake Band and Cree Community
of Little Buffalo Lake are one society of Cree people with
a common language, culture, society and way of life".)
The Lubicons applied to join the front group's legal action
against the federal government and prepared to introduce
evidence disproving the demonstrably untrue, scurrilous
and defamatory allegations being made in that action about
Lubicon history, Lubicon society, Lubicon leaders and the
conduct of Lubicon affairs. Facing the prospect of having
their fraudulent allegations publicly discredited in court,
lawyers for the front group adjourned their action sine
die -- which means that they left the action on the books
without having to defend their untrue allegations, that
the Lubicons had no legal forum for responding to those
allegations, and that lawyers for the front group held the
action over the heads of the Lubicons like a proverbial
sword of Damocles while preserving the option of re-opening
the action at any time. (This frustrating situation effectively
forced the Lubicons to go to the trouble and expense of
preparing a full response to these untrue allegations so
that they'd be able to respond to these untruthful allegations
in a timely way should the action be re-opened -- instead
of again being endlessly screwed around by the procedural
machinations of the Canadian courts during which time these
untrue allegations would again effectively go unchallenged.)
Shortly before the 1999 Lubicon election the court proposed
to dismiss the front group's legal action against the federal
government since nothing had happened with it for several
years, and since there was no reason to believe that front
group lawyers ever intended to proceed with it. Front group
lawyer Bob Roddick wrote the court asking that the legal
action be continued at least until after the 1999 Lubicon
election. He claimed falsely that he'd "recently been retained
by the Plaintiffs" suggesting, again falsely, that he was
new to the file and needed time to review it. He claimed,
revealingly, that front group members "are reasonably confident
that the (Lubicon) election on April 25, 1999 will lead
to a resolution of the issues involved". (Roddick had in
fact replaced Ms. Trace and Mr. Gill over 14 months earlier
giving him plenty of time to review the file and proceed
with it if that were his intention. His argument that the
case should be continued until at least after the 1999 election
because his clients were "reasonably confident that the
election...would lead to a resolution of the issues involved"
suggests that his clients would no longer be interested
in proceeding with a legal action alleging that they were
"a separate community which stands apart from the Lubicon
Lake Band" if they were successful in their efforts to win
election as Chief and Council of the Lubicon Lake Band.
Ignoring Mr. Roddick's transparent and noted deception about
his tenure on the file, and ignoring the internally contradictory
nature of the argument that his clients wanted to continue
an action seeking recognition of the supposedly separate
Little Buffalo Cree Band while they ran for Chief and Council
of the Lubicon Band, the court predictably granted the requested
continuance of the action seeking recognition of the supposedly
separate Little Buffalo Cree Band.)
Also shortly before the 1999 Lubicon election, carefully
drafted, lawyer-type letters were delivered to Lubicon Chief
and Council demanding copies of the Lubicon membership list
and election code -- supposedly on behalf of some of the
members of the front group. Lubicon Chief and Council responded
to these demands with an open letter to all Lubicon members
indicating that copies of the election code were publicly
available but that copies of the Lubicon membership list
were not publicly available because of repeated efforts
by both levels of Canadian government to misuse Lubicon
membership information to subvert Lubicon land rights. The
open letter from Chief and Council said further that Lubicon
members were welcome to view their own personal membership
information, as distinct from the membership information
of all Lubicon members, by simply making an appointment
with the Lubicon membership clerk.
Two members of the front group made arrangements to view
their personal membership information. Three other front
group members, including front group leader Mike Ominayak
who by this point had largely replaced Billy Joe Laboucan
as spokesman for the group, made an appointment to view
their personal membership information but didn't to show
up for the appointment.
The Lubicon election for Chief and Council was held as
scheduled on April 25, 1999. As is the traditional Lubicon
custom, the election was held in a community meeting open
to all qualified Lubicon electors. The election was presided
over by a duly appointed independent Chief Electoral Officer
named Sharon Venne. Not a Lubicon, Ms. Venne is a respected
aboriginal legal scholar with broad international experience
who is well versed in the conduct of traditional "custom"
aboriginal elections.
Prior to accepting nominations for Chief and Council,
Ms. Venne was required by Lubicon tradition to verify that
the people in the room were qualified Lubicon electors.
In traditional Lubicon elections, verifying that the people
in the room are qualified Lubicon electors is done by asking
the people in the room if there are any challenges to the
qualifications of anyone in the room. The Lubicon Chief
Electoral Officer then hears any such challenges and rules
on them. (Note that the Chief Electoral Officer does not
determine membership. The Chief Electoral Officer only determines
eligibility to vote in that particular election. The Chief
Electoral Officer might rightly determine, for example,
that a person is not qualified to vote in that particular
election even though there is no question about that person's
membership because they do not meet the minimum Lubicon
voting age requirement or the residency requirement. This
simple, elemental distinction between membership and eligibility
to vote is something else which the Canadian judge hearing
the case had difficulty grasping.)
To be a qualified Lubicon elector, a person must be a
Lubicon member at least 18 years of age who is ordinarily
resident in the traditional Lubicon Territory. To be a Lubicon
member, a person must be a person of aboriginal ancestry
with family ties to other Lubicon members and historic ties
to the traditional Lubicon Territory who did not "choose
instead to become a member of either another Indian Nation
or "Band" under the Indian Act". (Note that the Lubicon
membership code deliberately does not say "choose to become
a member of another recognized Indian Band under the Indian
Act and been accepted as a registered member of that other
recognized Indian Band". This is another important distinction
because front group lawyers argued that the affidavits stating
that front group members had chosen to form their own Little
Buffalo Cree Band were irrelevant to their certification
as qualified Lubicon electors because, supposedly, the Little
Buffalo Cree Band is not a recognized Band under the Indian
Act. That's of course a ridiculous semantic sophism on the
face of it but, sadly but again not surprisingly, the Canadian
judge hearing the case agreed that sworn affidavits saying
that people had chosen to join another Indian Band -- and
which people refused to renounce -- were irrelevant to their
certification as qualified Lubicon electors.)
At the 1999 Lubicon election questions were raised with
the duly appointed, independent Lubicon Chief Electoral
Officer about the ordinary place of residence of certain
individuals, about whether certain individuals were members
of another recognized Band under the Indian Act and/or whether
certain individuals had signed a sworn affidavit saying
that they'd chosen "to become a member of either another
Indian Nation or 'Band' under the Indian Act".
Ms. Venne asked those individuals who were part of the
expressly continued Little Buffalo Cree Band legal action
against the federal government to clarify their status by
signing sworn affidavits affirming their Lubicon membership
and renouncing the sworn affidavits they'd signed earlier
saying that they were not Lubicons and had chosen to form
another Band called the Little Buffalo Cree Band. If they
affirmed their Lubicon membership, and renounced the sworn
affidavit saying that they'd chosen instead to join another
Indian Band, Ms. Venne said, she would rule that they were
eligible to vote in the Lubicon election. If they refused
to sign a sworn affidavit effectively canceling their earlier
sworn affidavit, Ms. Venne said, she would rule that they
were not eligible to vote in the Lubicon election.
Some individuals who had signed the earlier sworn affidavits
saying that they'd chosen to join another Indian Band renounced
those affidavits and affirmed their Lubicon membership.
Ms. Venne ruled those individuals eligible to vote in the
Lubicon election and they did so.
Some individuals who had signed the earlier sworn affidavits
refused to renounce their earlier sworn affidavit saying
that they weren't Lubicons and had chosen to join another
Indian Band because, they said, irrelevantly, that there
was no such thing as a Little Buffalo Cree Band. Faced with
affidavits signed by these individuals in which they swore
they were not Lubicons and had chosen to join another Indian
Band -- which they refused to renounce -- Ms. Venne understandably
and rightfully under the Lubicon election code ruled those
individuals ineligible to vote in the Lubicon election.
(These are the individuals the Canadian court wrongly ruled
had been improperly denied the right to vote in the 1999
Lubicon election.)
Ms. Venne also ruled on a number of other eligibility
challenges pertaining to individuals who acknowledged that
they were not Lubicons, acknowledged they were registered
members of other recognized Indian Bands and/or who acknowledged
they were not ordinarily resident in the traditional Lubicon
Territory.
Following her rulings on eligibility, Ms. Venne proceeded
with the 1999 Lubicon election for Chief and Council. Chief
Ominayak and five Councillors were elected with approximately
130 qualified Lubicon electors voting.
Ms. Venne's full Chief Electoral Officer's Report on the
election is available on the Friends of the Lubicon web
site at
http://www.tao.ca/~fol/Pa/electp/rp990425.htm
Within a few weeks of the 1999 Lubicon election, the Little
Buffalo Cree Band front group abandoned their legal action
to enjoin negotiations and create a new Band. Instead, represented
by lawyer Roddick, some of the members of the Little Buffalo
Cree Band front group launched a new legal action against
Ms. Venne seeking to overturn the 1999 Lubicon election
claiming that they'd been wrongly denied the right to vote.
(Over 4 years later, it is this legal action which eventually
produced the May 14th decision reported in the July 5th
Edmonton Journal story.)
Not surprisingly since front group leader Mike Ominayak
testified under oath that Mr. Tully made the arrangements
to pay the financial expenses associated with the legal
action -- that "it all goes through (Mr. Tully)" including
Mr. Roddick's fees, Mr. Roddick dutifully sent Messrs. Tully
and Thiessen noted copies of legal correspondence to Ms.
Venne's lawyer regarding the election challenge. (The big
question, of course, is just who are Tully and Thiessen
working for.)
The list of individuals claiming that they were wrongly
denied the right to vote includes:
- a 14-year-old girl who was not present at the election
and on whose eligibility to vote no ruling was made;
- eight people who are acknowledged to be registered
members of other Indian Bands;
- nine people who admit that they have never been resident
in the traditional Lubicon Territory;
- six other people who it is acknowledged were not present
at the election and on whose eligibility to vote not ruling
was made;
- nine other people whose eligibility to vote was not
challenged nor ruled upon and who may or may not have
been present at the election.
Despite the fact that nothing could better illustrate
the frivolous and vexatious nature of this legal challenge
than people alleging that they were improperly denied the
right to vote at an election they didn't attend and where
no ruling on their eligibility to vote was made, the Canadian
courts found that the election challenge was not frivolous
and vexatious because, incredibly, some members of the front
group had supposedly been improperly denied the right to
vote since the Indian Band they'd chosen to join isn't a
recognized Indian Band under the Indian Act.
How all of this relates to Lubicon land negotiations isn't
yet known. Both levels of Canadian government are coming
to the negotiating table apparently prepared to engage in
serious negotiations. From all appearances those negotiations
seem to be proceeding hopefully to a successful conclusion
before the end of the Chretien government next February.
(Agreement on all substantive issues will have to have been
achieved by the end of the calendar year for a final settlement
agreement to be signed before Prime Minister Chretien leaves
office.)
Several things, however, are very clear. While there are
legitimate political differences between Lubicon members,
and different political factions, the front group whose
activities are described in the foregoing narrative is not
an indigenous, homegrown political faction. It would not
exist -- and the legal and political actions which have
been undertaken in the name of its members would not have
happened -- without direction, organization and financing
from outside.
Secondly those behind the actions of the front group are
not interested in a fair and just settlement of Lubicon
land rights. They remain committed to the destruction of
Lubicon society, or, at the very least, to destruction of
Lubicon society as a cohesive functioning society, albeit
it with different political factions, led by people representing
Lubicon interests.
And thirdly the July 5th Edmonton Journal newspaper article
is just the beginning of a major, pre-planned anti-Lubicon
propaganda campaign designed to undermine the integrity
of the Lubicon electoral process which will be systematically
unfolding from now until the next Lubicon election expected
sometime in the first half of next year. (It would be truly
tragic if the Lubicons were to achieve hard won settlement
of Lubicon land rights and lose effective Lubicon management
and control of Lubicon affairs.)
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