The following transcript illustrates quite well the situation the 
Lubicons are faced with in their efforts to procure a just and fair
land-claim settlement. 

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Transcript of Statement made by Ross Harvey, New Democrat M.P.,
Edmonton East, during House of Commons "Late Show" for private
Members' business, Tuesday, December 19, 1989                    


Mr. Speaker:

On December 1, all Petro-Canada wells on traditional Lubicon lands in
NW Alberta were stilled.  They have remained dormant since.

Petro-Canada, and its partner Norcen Energy Resources, voluntarily
undertook to comply with the request of the Lubicon people that they
halt their activities on Lubicon land as of December 1.

The Lubicon people made this request -- which, in the face of non-
compliance, would have become an order on December 1st -- as a means
of bringing pressure to bear on the federal government.  It is one
more tactic adopted by the Band in their decades old attempt to force
the federal government to negotiate a fair settlement to their
outstanding claims.

Two days before the shutdown took effect, on November 29, I asked the
Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development the following
question:

	"...will the government direct its officials to make
                 clear, and announce, the government's willingness
                 now to resume negotiations with the Lubicon on all
                 aspects of their claim, including a compensation
                 package?'

The Minister, in his response, neatly side-stepped the question of
negotiation of compensation, saying instead that

	"...ever since we made this offer last January, we
                 have been prepared to go back to the table to
                 discuss the fair and comprehensive offer that was
                 made to the Lubicons."

What he did not say was that the offer made last January specifically
ruled out any negotiation of compensation for the Lubicon people.

That offer included a series of disparate suggestions for various
forms of assistance for which the Band might apply, for guarantees of
some funding into which the federal government might enter, for
promises that some current federal initiatives might be reviewed in
the hopes they could be made more generous in the Band's interests,
and for the establishment of certain trust monies in an endowment
fund for the Band.

It clearly and categorically ruled out any negotiated compensation
for the years of foregone federal treaty payments lost by the Band
because they were missed by the federal government's Treaty Eight
negotiators, and for the billions of dollars in mineral wealth sucked
out of the ground beneath the Lubicons' feet while they have spent
the last fifty years trying patiently and reasonably to reach some
fair conclusion to their claims.

And let us make no mistake:  we're talking about a great deal of
money here.  Total forgone treaty benefits have been calculated --in
a fashion approved of by the federal government's own investigator,
Mr. E. Davie Fulton -- at up to $170 million.  And in an affidavit
filed on behalf of the Alberta Government on June 30, 1983, it was
estimated that:

	"The negative monetary impact to Alberta" -- of an
                 injunction against oil and gas exploitation in the
                 4,000 square miles of traditional Lubicon lands --
                 "could amount to roughly $450 to $500 million
                 annually."

Another calculation has set the value of oil and gas production from
traditional Lubicon lands over the last ten years at about $5
billion.

It is useful, it is reasonable, to keep such figures in mind while we
consider that the entire compensation package sought by the Lubicon
people is simply that which they have been denied in consequence of
sloppy work by the Government's original Treaty Eight negotiators. 
$170 million.  About a third of one year's production, according to
the 1983 Alberta Government affidavit.

But the Government has made a very generous offer of $45 million,
some will protest.  Obviously, in rejecting this generous offer and
demanding an unconscionable $170 million, the Lubicon people are just
being greedy and vexatious, they will say.

Are they?

Perhaps we can judge the matter by comparing the Lubicon's position
to the settlements actually achieved in consequence of recent
negotiations.  Let's consider just two, both of which are Outstanding
Treaty Land Entitlement Settlements -- additions to existing Treaty
settlements for existing Bands with existing community
infrastructure.

In the case of the Sturgeon Lake Band, the "new adherents" to the
Band covered by the settlement reached earlier this year accounted
for an average of almost $180,000 each in compensation, and about 477
acres per person of land with subsurface rights.  Applied to the 500-
plus Lubicon people, those numbers would result in a compensation
package worth almost $90 million, and a land entitlement of 373
square miles.  In fact, the Lubicon people are asking for less than a
quarter that amount of land, about 80 sq. miles, and a little less
than twice that much money, about $170 million.

Hardly greedy.  Hardly vexatious.  Hardly out of line at all.

Or take the example, also from this year, of the Whitefish Lake Band. 
The 117 acres of land accorded each of its "new adherents", along
with the more than $400,000 per person compensation package would
work out to 91.4 square miles for the 500-plus Lubicons, and a
compensation package of more than $200 million.  In both instances
more than the Lubicon are asking for.

A similar pro-rating of the Comprehensive Settlement negotiated with
the Inuit of the Central and Western Arctic earlier this year would
give the Lubicon a meagre $17 million in compensation -- but a
whopping 409 square miles of reserve land.

And a similar pro-rating of the Comprehensive Settlement achieved
last year with the Yukon Indians would grant the Lubicon Band $18.7
million in compensation, and a gigantic 1,250 square miles of land.

So it is clear the proposals of the Lubicon people are reasonable,
and eminently suitable for the negotiation of a fair settlement.

But the House need not take my word alone for this.  Alberta Premier
Don Getty -- not a man known for the reckless indulgence of the wants
and wishes of the less powerful and wealthy in our society -- has
himself labelled the Government's offer "deficient in the area of
providing economic stability for the future".  Even he acknowledges
that "if you don't also build into your planning the ability to have
businesses, farms, the type of thing...that will allow you to get
economic development out into the future, you're going to merely have
a pocket of dependency."

And that, in fact, hits the very nub of the great problem with the
Government's current offer of last January:  it is sufficient to
create an economy of perpetual dependence, an economy of welfare
payments, modest employment mostly on job-training programs designed
to qualify people for UI payments, an economy of privation and
despair; but it is not sufficient to allow the Lubicon people to
create an economy of self-sufficiency, an economy in which their own
productive efforts will prove sufficient to allow them to fend for
themselves and retain and enhance their own unique society.

Is it any wonder, then, that the Lubicon people are willing to fight
for a decent settlement?  Is it any wonder that they are prepared to
close off fossil fuel production on their lands?  Is it any wonder
that they are willing to blockade roads?  Is it any wonder that they
are willing to enlist the aid of sympathizers around the globe?

The federal government is fighting for a few million dollars.  The
Lubicon people are fighting for their very lives and the lives of
their people for all time to come.

And all that is required for them to secure their futures is a bit of
generosity and good will, and bit of fairness and a sense of justice,
on this government's part.

So far, to the shame of all Canadians, it seems that has been too
much to ask.

And so, again, I ask the Parliamentary Secretary:  will the
Government direct its officials to make clear, and announce, the
Government's willingness now to resume negotiations with the Lubicon
on all aspects of their claim, including a compensation package?  Or
will their hearts remain as hard as that of the Bible's Pharaoh, a
truly be-nighted gentleman whom, increasingly, they come to resemble?


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