Lubicon Lake Indian Nation Little Buffalo Lake, AB 403-629-3945 FAX: 403-629-3939 Mailing address: 3536 - 106 Street Edmonton, AB T6J 1A4 403-436-5652 FAX: 403-437-0719 December 01, 1991 On November 28th Federal Lubicon negotiator Brian Malone issued the attached press statement denying that the Federal Government is refusing to negotiate a fair settlement of Lubicon land rights, reiterating Federal Government claims that right ComEdmonton,t »Ét monton,cUšthat the Federal Government is refusing to negotiate a fair setthed presė nUžIn’l Government claims that right ComEdmonton,ˆ’I’’v–ėI1IA4 ?ĖM7v’’kaŹ)nąIeral Goven*xua e tr settlement of LubicoĖ7$h’’kaŹ)nąI) tusingEaake Indian Nation ) tusingittle Buffaloake, AB ) tusin403-629-3945 ) tusinFAX:in403-629-3939 ) tusinMailing address: ) tusin3536 - 106 Street ) tusinEdmonton, AB T6J 1A4 ) tusin403-436-5652 ) tusinFAX:in403-437-0719 July 2, 1991 Enclosed for your information are copies of correspondence and other materials regarding recent efforts to try and engineer recognition of the so-called Woodland Cree Band by legitimate aboriginal nations. While on one level the attached materials are self-explanatory, some background on the Grand Council of Treaty 8 First Nations is in order. For years the Chiefs of Treaty 8 have been seeking government support for an organization which could represent their particular interests and provide them with technical advice and assistance. They were unsuccessful until last summer, when, suspiciously coincidental with the Mohawk situation in Quebec, Canadian Federal Indian Affairs Minister Tom Siddon quietly signed a strangely unpublicized "Memorandum of Agreement" with selected representatives of the Treaty 8 Chiefs. The stated purpose of the Grand Council Memorandum of Agreement is "to review and investigate the issues which exist between the Federal Government and Treaty 8 First Nations". Certainly it is with this perfectly innocent and understandable intent that the vast majority of Treaty 8 Chiefs agreed to participate. However there's reason to believe that Siddon's motives in signing the agreement weren't so innocent and that the Mulroney Government has in fact something significantly more ominous in mind. The key guy in organizing the Council of Treaty 8 Chiefs, or at least the key front man, is the Chief of a small "family" reserve in northern Alberta named Frank Halcrow. Since Halcrow is generally credited with obtaining long-sought Federal Government support for a Treaty 8 organization, the other Treaty 8 Chiefs agreed that he should be the "Grand Chief" of the Grand Council. Halcrow is the known protege and admirer of a man named Walter Twinn. Twinn is the Chief of a small, oil-rich northern Alberta Band called the Sawridge Band. As of a few years ago Chief Twinn was the single largest financial atributor in the coutry to the ruling aservative party -- bigger than Esso Oil. He is the proud holder of a highly desirable and lucrative hotel franchise granted by the Federal Government in Jasper National Park. And he's recently been appointed to the prestigious Canadian Senate by Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. One of Halcrow's main advisors in organizing the Grand Council is a man named Ray Dupres. Dupres is an ex-Indian Affairs bureaucrat, past top staff man for Walter Twinn and one of the key organizers of the Woodland Cree Band. He's also played a significant role in efforts to involve aboriginal people with the Daishowa and Al-Pac pulp mills. Funding arrangements for operation of the Grand Council are not known but undoubtedly exist since Halcrow is now operating out of a reportedly plush Grand Council office in Edmonton. The Memorandum of Agreement indicates only that "a Bilateral Committee, asisting of the Grand Chief of the Grand Council (Halcrow) and the Regional Director General, Alberta Region, (Federal) Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (a man named Gary Wouters), together with (their respective support personnel)...will ...negotiate a resourcing agreement for the funding of the implementation and aduct of all obligations and requirements under this agreement". While the Treaty 8 Chiefs may have a number of issues they want to pursue through the Grand Council, meetings between representatives of Indian Affairs and the Grand Council -- including the omnipresent Ray Dupres on behalf of the Grand Council -- have reportedly focused almost exclusively on so-called "economic development". "Economic development" in this atext means involvement of aboriginal people in the forestry industry -- not of the lucrative kind being launched by Japanese ampanies like Al-Pac and Daishowa, but rather small, seasonal logging and sawmill operations required to feed the huge Daishowa and Al-Pac mills. (One meeting participant reports "All (Federal Indian Affairs Regional Director General) Gary Wouters wants to talk about is logging". "He keeps saying that the Indians should get in on the ground floor while they've got the chance and not miss out like they did in the oil boom".) Needless to say you don't need a weatherman to tell you what way this ill- wind is blowing. Such small-scale and relatively insignificant aboriginal involvement in the forestry industry will predictably be used to couter both the gEas and environment-alists, first by arguing that Government and the pulp mills are not committing genocide against aboriginal people but are rather working with and providing employment for aboriginal people, and second by arguing that callous environmentalists are trying to deny desperately needed jobs for poor unemployed aboriginal people. Woodland Cree Chief Johnny Cardinal showed up at an early Grand Council organizational meeting in Edmonton a year ago last March asking for formal Grand Council recognition of the so-called Woodland Cree Band. Who'd invited him to attend the meeting or even advised him of it was a mystery - - at least nobody would admit having done it. gEaChief Ominayak was not expected to attend the March 1990 Grand Council meeting but was able to do so at the last minute. In response to the Woodland Cree request for Grand Council recognition Chief Ominayak reviewed Federal Government creation of the so-called Woodland Cree Band and spelled out what he perceived to be the implications of possible Grand Council recognition. Consequently a resolution condemning Federal Government creation of the so-called Woodland Cree and refusing recognition was unanimously passed by the Treaty 8 Chiefs. A year later, in March of 1991, a motion again proposing formal Grand Council recognition was somehow put before the Treaty 8 Chiefs. Halcrow says in a letter dated June 19, 1991 (attached), that the motion was made following a second request for recognition by Woodland Chief Johnny Cardinal. However no one who knows Johnny Cardinal would believe for a minute that he would make such a request unless he was solicited to do so by somebody he thought would be able to produce a less embarrassing result than he'd faced a year earlier. Chief Ominayak was not in attendance at the March 1991, Grand Council meeting. Recognition was not granted to the Woodland Cree but a curiously worded resolution instructing Grand Chief Halcrow to "act as the mediator with a 30 June 1991 deadline..." was passed. Recognition of the so-called Woodland Cree by June 30 of course fits perfectly with reported Federal Government plans to sign a Woodland Cree settlement agreement on the July 11th anniversary of the invasion of Kanesatake. It also fits perfectly with known instructions to officials of the Regional Indian Affairs office to have a Woodland Cree settlement agreement ready for the end of June, and with a now publicly advertised July 5th and 6th Woodland Cree "referendum on settlement agreement". (Such a referendum has to be passed by the so- alled Woodland Cree before a settlement agreement can be signed). Following the attached exchange of correspondence between Chiefs Halcrow and Ominayak, Johnny Cardinal understandably did not attend the June 26, 1991, Grand Council meeting -- pleading an earlier commitment. Several people were however able to reach him by phone at his Cadotteake office. Predictably Halcrow and Twinn were the ones pushing at the June 26th meeting for Grand Council recognition of the Woodland Cree, although both eventually voted against recognition rather than be publicly isolated, and although Twinn later dissembled like crazy when asked about his position on the issue by representatives of the media. Reflecting once again the polygenetic nature of the so-called Woodland Cree Band, announced polling places for the up-coming Woodland Cree "referendum on settlement agreement" include not only the little aboriginal community of Cadotteake where a Woodland Cree Band office has been set-up, but the Metis Friendship Cetres in the surrounding non-aboriginal communities of Peace River and Slave ake, as well as the Federal Government's main office building in the city of Edmonton. * * * * * Attachment #1: June 04, 1991, Bernard Ominayak letter to Frank Halcrow with attachments Grand Chief Frank Halcrow Grand Council of Treaty 8 First Nations 1050 Scotia Place, Tower 1 10080 Jasper Avenue Edmonton, AB T5I 3R3 FAX: 403-424-8614 Dear Chief Halcrow: gast Thursday I received a fax communication from your Executive Director Robert Cree referring to a letter and resolution on the so-called Woodland Cree which you'd supposedly forwarded to my office some time after April 18, 1991. I never received any such letter or resolution util my office atacted your office this afternoon and requested a faxed copy. I am now in possession of that faxed copy of your letter with resolution although frankly I'm still not quite sure what the letter or the resolution are all about. The resolution quoted in the letter refers to "the issue of the Woodland Cree Band" and indicates that you should "act as a mediator with a 30 June 1991 deadline date to resolve the issue by this time or prior to". Neither the letter nor the resolution state what the issue is that you are supposed to "mediate". Presumably what this is all about is another effort by the same mysterious individual or individuals who tried unsuccessfully last March to get the Grand Council to recognize the so-called Woodland Cree as a legitimate Indian Band. The Woodland Cree of course aren't a legitimate Indian Band at all, but, as stated in Resolution #6 of the IAA's last Annual General Assembly, are rather "an undemocratic artificial creation of the Government of Canada designed to undermine the rights of the gEaake Nation". If what you've in fact been asked to "mediate" is gEaopposition to Grand Council recognition of the Woodland Cree, then you're wasting your time. We strongly oppose Grand Council recognition of the Woodland Cree, not only because doing so would lend legitimacy to an artificial Federal Government creation designed to undermine the rights of the gEaake people, but because doing so would legitimize this transparent but potetially very effective Federal Government tactic for subverting and tearing apart any aboriginal nation whom the Canadian Government casiders troublesome. Should there be any question about the threat that creation of the Woodland Cree poses to all legitimate aboriginal nations I call your attention once again to the section of the Indian Act under which the Woodland Cree was established. That section is section 17 and the operative clauses read as follows: "17.(1) The Minister may, WHENEVER HE CONSIDERS IT DESIRABLE (capitalization added), castitute new Bands and establish new Band lists with respect thereto from existing Band lists, or from the Indian Register, if requested to do so by (an unspecified number) of persons proposing to form the new Bands. "17.(2) Where pursuant to subsection (1) a new Band has been established FROM AN EXISTING BAND OR ANY PART THEREOF, SUCH PORTION OF THE RESERVE LANDS AND FUNDS OF THE EXISTING BAND AS THE MINISTER DETERMINES (capitalization added)