Fulton criticizes provincial stand

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Support for the Lubicon Lake Indian Band's position in its conflict with the Alberta government has come from a federally-appointed mediator.

A discussion paper leaked to the media, prepared by E. Davie Fulton, a former Conservative federal justice minister, supports the Band's request for about 200 square kilometres of land, rather than the 65 square kilometres offered by Alberta Native Affairs Minister Milt Pahl.

Fulton's report also confirms charges by the World Council of Churches that oil and gas development in the area has had disastrous consequences for the people of Lubicon Lake.

And, the report says, if the Band can establish its Native rights "an appropriate amount of compensation would be in the hundred of millions of dollars," and if rights can't be established, a fair settlement would still be in the "score of millions."

Despite Fulton's support, however, the Band's lawyer, James O'Reilly, doubt there will ever be a provincial government settlement with the Band.

He says the provincial government is hoping the Lubicon Lake Indians will be wiped out as a group if it delays settling Aboriginal land claims.

"Alberta just wants to let as many years as possible go by and hope the Band will fall apart and won't be able to hold on and then they won't owe anything.

"I don't think the Band is going to go away. If anything it has gotten stronger in its resolve to fight this through."

Fulton's report has supported many of the Band's grievances.

The average family in the band will have less than $400 in trapping income this year, compared with $5,000 a family in the winter of 1979-80, Fulton noted.

Quoting a report by a wild-life expert, he said the total value of subsistence hunting and trapping by the Lubicon Indians has fallen to one-tenth of its 1979-80 level.

For example, the Indians expect to kill fewer than 20 moose this year. Before 1979-80, they killed more than 200 annually.

The Lubicon Indians, who live 120 kilometres east of Peace River, were promised a reserve in 1940. Ottawa and Alberta agreed then to provide a reserve of 65 square kilometres at the west end of Lubicon Lake.

However, the federal government backed out of the deal and a reserve was never created.

Substantial revenues flowed from the reserve site, but none of the benefits reached the Indians, Fulton said. The Lubicon Lake area has become a prime site for oil and gas development.

The report states that if the Indians had not launched a legal action in 1982, it is reasonable to think that "nothing would have been done for them to this day.

"In such circumstances, when their need was urgent, their situation was desperate and worsening daily, and their best efforts along the line of negotiation were producing no results...There appeared to be no practical alternatives but recourse to litigation," it says.

"And it is a sad fact that it was not until after that recourse to litigation that meaningful negotiations - now including their inquiry -were initiated by Canada."

The reserve for the Lubicon Indians should be larger than 65 square kilometres because the band's membership has increased since 1940, Mr. Fulton says. He recommends a genealogical study to determine total band membership, which would be used to set the size of the reserve.

Under the Band's new membership code, approved recently in Ottawa, its membership could reach 450.

In December, Alberta offered to give the Indians a 65-square-kilometre reserve if they agreed to drop their legal action against the province.

Milt Pahl, Alberta's minister of Native Affairs, said the federal government had accepted the deal.

But David Crombie, federal Minister of Indian Affairs, said Ottawa has never supported Alberta's demand that the Indians withdraw their lawsuit.

The band rejected the Alberta offer. The Indians want 210 square kilometres, plus other benefits and Aboriginal hunting rights.

Fulton recommends that Alberta compensate the Indians to offset the damage cused by "the unrestricted development which has been allowed to take place without their consent and before they have had time to adjust."

He says that Alberta "permitted the development in question and has derived very substantial revenues therefrom - far beyond the amount of this claim."

The report also recommends implementing an environmental protection program

in the Lubicon region, a policy of giving priority to band members for jobs, compensation to the Indians for oil and gas revenue from the reserve, and a catch-up program of federal spending on housing, water, sewage, and economic development for the Indians. Fulton's report, not yet officially released, is an interim report. Further negotiations are expected to take place among Ottawa, Alberta and the Lubicon Band.