LAND AND LIFE

The struggle of the Lubicon Cree

Watch this slideshow telling the story of the Lubicon Cree's decades -long struggle to maintain their rights over their traditional lands.

Click here to start the slideshow

Or use the buttons below the slideshow image to view the slides manually, then follow the links to take action in support of justice for the Lubicon Cree.

Download a powerpoint of this slideshow to show in your community or workplace.

Lubicon Cree Territory

The traditional territory of the Lubicon Cree lies in heart of the rich oil and gas belt through northern Alberta.

The Lubicon were overlooked when a treaty was negotiated with other First Nations in the region in 1899. They have never entered into any agreement with the government of Canada to give up their rights or allow the government to use their lands.

For us, it's not a question of asking for land. We know it's our land. The problem is that the province figures it's theirs and they keep issuing licenses to the oil and gas industry. It's been a long, hard struggle. They're finding more and more oil and gas and now we're talking tarsands.
- Bernard Ominayak, July 2008

A Lubicon trapper's cabin, no longer used since the arrival of the oil wells.

The province of Alberta has licensed more than 2000 oil and gas wells in Lubicon territory since 1979. That's more than four oil wells for every Lubicon person. It's estimated that more than $14 billion in oil and gas has been extracted from the disputed lands.

These are people that had survived, that lived off the land. This was their livelihood. It was what they knew. It was the only thing they knew. And then the late 70's, when they built the all-weather road in, suddenly there wasn't enough game. People couldn't live off the land. In came the welfare system. Lubicon Cree member Cynthia Tomlinson, July 2008

Oil and gas installations in Lubicon territory

When oil and gas development began, the Lubicon were largely self-sufficient. But oil and gas development lead to the collapse of the traditional hunting and trapping economy. Within a few years, 90 percent of the community were dependent on welfare.

...various extractive industries... have a direct impact on the human rights, including adequate housing, of these communities because of the water and air pollution they generate and critical land area taken away from the communities.
- United Nations Special rapporteur on housing Miloon Kothari

No Clean Water

The Lubicon community of Little Buffalo has no safe, clean drinking water and no sanitation system.

...the basic health and resistance to infection of community members has deteriorated dramatically. The lack of running water and sanitary facilities in the community, needed to replace the traditional systems of water and sanitary management... is leading to the development of diseases associated with poverty and poor sanitary and health conditions.
Lubicon complaint upheld by the United Nations Human Rights Committee in 1990

Sour Gas

The plight of the Lubicon is precisely the type of issue that should generate widespread public discussion.... [The] current state of affairs for the Lubicon Cree... deserves the adjectives tragic, desperate and intolerable.
- Justice MacPherson, Ontario Court of Appeal

Graveyard at Little Buffalo

The proof is in our graveyards. We've lost our children and our grandchildren, our brothers and our sisters. When they opened the road, that's their progress. The graveyards are full now.
- Dwight Gladue, July 2008

Warnings

The Crown, acting honourably, cannot cavalierly run roughshod over Aboriginal interests...To unilaterally exploit aclaimed resource during the process of proving and resolving the Aboriginal claim to that resource, may be to deprive the Aboriginal claimants of some or all of the benefit of the resource. That is not honourable.
- Supreme Court of Canada 2004

Gas development

Since the Grimshaw Accord between the Lubicon and the Province in 1988, there has been no new development on the small portion of the traditional lands promised to the Lubicon as a reserve.

However oil and gas development continue throughout the traditional territory, with little consideration for the impact on the Lubicon Cree.

Construction of a massive pipeline across Lubicon lands begun in October 2008

The information received points to a lack of clarity with regard to the land rights over territory through which the Pipeline would be routed, and therefore to doubts as to whether the Government of Alberta and the Alberta Utilities Commission may legitimately authorise the construction of a pipeline across Lubicon Territory without prior Lubicon consent.
- UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, August 2008

The Lubicon community of Little Buffalo

All we're asking is to be a viable community and not dependent on any government. We have that right to be able to say to our kids and our grandchildren, 'Here's a land base and here you're going to be able to live somewhat like the rest of the people in Canada.'
- Dwight Gladue, July 2008

Fish Lake, in the heart of the proposed Lubicon reserve

No other human rights issue in Canada has been so frequently criticized by international human rights bodies. The United Nations has repeatedly called for Canada to end the violation of Lubicon rights.

Negotiations to resolve the land dispute have been stalled since 2003.

The future

We've got to be able to build a foundation, a good foundation, for the future of our young people. There's nothing more, nothing less than that.
- Bernard Ominayak, July 2008

Take Action to help the Lubicon Cree

• Download this slideshow and show it in your community (powerpoint format, 3.6 mB)
  
• Sign our on-line petition to send an immediate message to the Government of Alberta that oil and gas development must respect the rights of Lubicon Cree.


• Help build the movement for justice for the Lubicon Cree. Send a message to your friends on Facebook and Twitter.