Pipeline construction can't start: Lubicon Cree
Last Updated: Thursday, October 16, 2008
CBC News
A small First Nation in northern Alberta is calling on TransCanada Pipelines to consult with them before it starts building a pipeline through their traditional territory.
"TransCanada will not be allowed to proceed with construction by the Lubicon people until such time they recognize land rights that we do have," said Dwight Gladue, a councillor with the Lubicon Lake First Nation.
The 300-kilometre pipeline, that will run from Manning, north of Peace River, to Wabasca, received approval from the Alberta Utilities Commission last week.
Gladue and fellow band councillor Alphonse Omanayak made the demand at a news conference Thursday at the Alberta Legislature.
"We're not fundamentally opposed to it," Omanayak said about the project. "We just want proper channels and respect due to our people."
Omanayak said there are concerns about the effects the pipeline will have on the health and safety of their people, as well as the impact on wildlife and the environment.
"Our position is the land is our land, and any company or industry [that] wants to proceed through our territory, they'll have to come through the proper channels which are in place at the Lubicon office," Omanayak said, adding other resource industries have met with the band about projects.
But a spokesperson for the Alberta Utilities Commission said the Lubicon were denied intervener status at hearings on the project because they did not provide the commission with necessary information, even after it granted them an extension.
"It's a two-step process basically, and it applies to everybody, whether its Lubicon, or whoever. And the first step is to demonstrate to us what rights you believe you have on the land in question. And second, how those rights might be adversely affected by what's proposed in the application," said Jim Law.
"The simple fact is, the Lubicon in this instance chose not to provide any information … it was impossible for us under those circumstances to grant them intervener status."
A representative for TransCanada Pipelines told CBC News Thursday the company held 15 face-to-face meetings with the Lubicon Cree, as well as meetings with 13 other First Nations.
Robert Kendall, director of aboriginal relations for TransCanada, said the company altered the route of the pipeline after elders suggested it be moved further away from a lake.
The Lubicon Cree have been involved with a decades-long dispute with the federal government over land claims.
The Lubicon never signed a treaty with the federal government, and it does not have any reserve lands.
The United Nations has urged Canada to settle a land claim with the band, which has 500 members.
An Amnesty International representative joined the Lubicon Cree at the Alberta Legislature Thursday.
"The many long decades of failure to respect the human rights of the Lubicon Lake Indian Nation in Northern Alberta have become one of Canada's and Alberta's most notorious human rights failings on the world stage," said Alex Neve, secretary-general of Amnesty International Canada.
Neve said Amnesty International has launched a global initiative in support of the Lubicon Cree.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2008/10/16/lubicon-cree-pipeline...
