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 July 30, 1993 Enclosed for your information are: a press statement and newspaper article pertaining to the continuing boycott of Daishowa paper products, an exchange of correspondence between Daishowa PR man James Morrison and Lubicon Settlement Commission Co-Chair Father Jacques Johnson, a so-called "Fact Book" on the Daishowa boycott being sent to Daishowa customers by Daishowa Executive Vice President Tom Hamaoka (offering among other things legal and public relations assistance to "any customer experiencing boycott pressure"), and, a resolution supporting Lubicon Settlement Commission recommendations and outlining a strategy for the up-coming Federal election which was unanimously passed at the annual assembly of some 600 Indian Chiefs from across Canada. (Lubicon Settlement Commission recommendations have already received broad support from across the country and internationally, including both of the main Canadian opposition political parties, organized labour in Canada and the major Canadian churches.) The reason that information on the Daishowa boycott and Lubicon Settlement Commission recommendations are included in this pre-election package is that they're complementary and both tactically related to the up-coming Federal election. By effectively blocking the exploitation of natural resources from unceded aboriginal lands until there's a settlement of outstanding aboriginal land rights the Daishowa boycott will hopefully provide the Canadian and Alberta Governments with enhanced motivation to settle. And by offering the Canadian and Alberta Governments broadly supported recommendations for settlement the Lubicon Settlement Commission will hopefully provide the Canadian and Alberta Governments with clear-cut, responsible and already well-received means for achieving that settlement. Both the Daishowa boycott and Lubicon Settlement Commission recommendations should therefore receive as much support as possible during this pre-election and election period. The Morrison letter and Hamaoka "Fact Book" are typically both full of outrageously self-serving distortions, misrepresentations and outright lies carefully expressed so as to leave the liar with ways to try and explain or qualify himself out of the fallacious impression which he has deliberately fashioned -- should he ever encounter someone who absolutely knows better. Those kind of lies make clear that the liar just isn't ignorant of the facts but knows that he's lying, and that he's lying with calculation and deliberation -- in this case as a function of conscious corporate policy and strategy. The Morrison letter, for example, repeats the company line which first appeared in an April 12, 1991 letter to the Chairman of the Toronto-based Task Force on the Churches and Corporate Responsibility that there was never "a verbal understanding between Daishowa and the Lubicons involving the Lubicon traditional territory". Mr. Morrison makes this knowingly fallacious statement in response to the conclusion of the Lubicon Settlement Commission that Daishowa has indeed breached an agreement with the Lubicons to stay out of the traditional Lubicon territory until there's a settlement of Lubicon land rights and an agreement negotiated with the Lubicon people respecting Lubicon wildlife and environmental concerns. In other words Mr. Morrison creates one quite distinct impression for one audience, one purpose, one set of circumstances; namely, he creates the fallacious impression that there supposedly never was "a verbal understanding between Daishowa and the Lubicons involving the Lubicon traditional territory". The Hamaoka so-called "Fact Book", on the other hand -- addressing a different audience with a different purpose and in the context of a different set of circumstances -- deliberately fashions a quite different but no less conscious deception. Responding to a Daishowa-conjured question "Has Daishowa failed to honour a pledge given to the Lubicons not to cut or use forest resources from the Lubicon area of concern until the land claim issue is settled with the Federal Government", Mr. Hamaoka states that "Daishowa believes that it has honoured its commitment (to the Lubicons) not to harvest on the proposed Lubicon "Reserve Area" and to consult with the Lubicons prior to harvesting near the reserve area". Mr. Hamaoka goes on to say that this "proposed Lubicon Reserve Area... is the area that the Lubicons negotiated with the Alberta Provincial Government". Thus contrary to the fallacious impression deliberately created by the Morrison letter that there never was "a verbal understanding between Daishowa and the Lubicons involving Lubicon traditional territory", Mr. Hamaoka deliberately seeks to create the equally fallacious impression that Daishowa has "honoured a pledge (or commitment) given to the Lubicons not to cut or use forest resources from the Lubicon area". However, in order to create that impression without actually locking Daishowa into a commitment to act accordingly, Mr. Hamaoka purposefully answers a quite different question than he asks. While the question which he poses to himself pertains to the 4,000 sq. mile so-called "Lubicon area of concern" which the Lubicons discussed with Daishowa on March 7, 1988, Mr. Hamaoka's response pointedly refers only to the much smaller 95 sq. mile so-called "proposed Lubicon Reserve Area... negotiated with the Alberta Provincial Government" on October 22, 1988 -- over 7 months later. (Needless to say it wouldn't have been possible for Daishowa to agree to stay out of an area which wasn't delineated until over 7 months later. And it wouldn't have made any sense in any case for the Lubicons to make such a "proposed reserve area" agreement with Daishowa prior to final settlement of Lubicon land rights over the entire 4,000 sq. mile traditional Lubicon territory. But those are the kind of logical and logistical inconsistencies one creates by taking such gross liberties with the truth. Things get all twisted-up, confused, non- sensical, out-of-order and require further lies to try and explain.) Similarly, after earlier trying out a half-a-dozen differing characterizations of the relationship between Daishowa and Daishowa contractors or subsidiaries in the Lubicon area -- including one company which is wholly owned by Daishowa -- Mr. Morrison's letter to Father Johnson repeats the company line which first appeared on October 17, 1990 in the form of claims to the media that "these companies are not considered Daishowa sub-contractors in that they'd normally be harvesting the spruce and leaving the aspen to rot on the ground (instead of providing that aspen to Daishowa's giant Peace River pulp mill)". He writes that "the logging companies referred to are in fact sawmill operations that have logged in the region for many years". He claims that "the logging equipment that was torched (on November 24, 1990) belonged to a contractor for an independent sawmill that is totally unrelated to Daishowa-Marubeni's operations". And he concludes that "it is therefore incorrect to imply that Daishowa-Marubeni has control over independent sawmills and their contractors, WHICH OF COURSE HAVE SEPARATE CONIFEROUS TIMBER QUOTA AGREEMENTS WITH THE ALBERTA GOVERNMENT (Capitalization added)." (Mr. Morrison of course here fails to mention that there has never been logging in the Lubicon territory of the horrific scope and magnitude now contemplated by Daishowa, or that the "separate coniferous timber quota agreements" to which he so cryptically refers in fact stipulate -- as a convenient function of Daishowa's extremely advantageous agreement with the Alberta Provincial Government - - that these supposedly "independent, totally unrelated" companies must provide Daishowa with the aspen which they cut down when they clear-cut unceded Lubicon territory.) Mr. Hamaoka's so-called "Fact Book", on the other hand -- addressing a different audience under different circumstances and again wishing to create a different deception -- doesn't try to deny the obvious relationship between Daishowa and the network of small companies which by design and agreement with the Alberta Provincial Government feed Daishowa's giant Peace River pulp mill. Rather he denies, in another of those disingenuous questions which Daishowa carefully chooses to ask itself for the supposed elucidation of anybody dumb enough to take carefully constructed Daishowa propaganda at face value, that "Daishowa- Marubeni (or its subsidiaries or contractors) practice harmful and unrestricted clearcut logging". Instead, Mr. Hamaoka says, "Daishowa- Marubeni uses a two pass harvesting system whereby we patch cut less than 1% (5,000-6,000 hectares) per year of our productive forest area in about 150 scattered blocks which average about 40 hectares each in size". (The actual percent of the Daishowa lease to be "patch cut" annually by and/or for Daishowa is a matter of controversy. Some information suggests that the Provincial Government has overestimated the "productive forest area" in other parts of the Province by 30% with the result that Daishowa's annual allowable cut could be as much as 7%. The term "patch cut" used by Mr. Hamaoka to counter charges of clearcutting is in fact just a cynically calculated euphemism for clearcutting, indicating a bunch of 40 hectare clearcuts instead of simply one continuous clearcut. For those unaccustomed to thinking in terms of 40 hectare plots, something upon which Mr. Hamaoka is of course counting, he's in fact talking about clearcutting 150 areas each about the size of 80 football fields, "harvesting" about 11,000 trees a day to produce 1,000 metric tonnes of dehydrated pulp per day -- volumes and numbers reportedly about to be doubled to 300 areas each the size of 80 football fields and some 22,000 trees daily to produce 2,000 metric tonnes of dehydrated pulp per day.) Other self-serving questions posed by Daishowa to itself in Hamaoka's so- called "Fact Book" further illustrate and underscore the nature of the Daishowa forest monster and Daishowa's deceitful propaganda campaign. Mr. Hamaoka's so-called "Fact Book" asks "Is Daishowa-Marubeni cutting or using forest resources from anywhere within the Lubicon area of concern?" Daishowa then answers its own question by stating "No, Daishowa-Marubeni does not harvest or utilize any logs or residual woodchips obtained from the Lubicon area of concern". It says "In the past a small owner operator sawmill which became a subsidiary of Daishowa (Brewster Construction) traditionally harvested trees for 15 years without incident from an area recently defined by the Lubicons as their area of concern". It says "The Lubicons objected to this practice after Daishowa-Marubeni's acquisition, therefore alternate sources of timber have been found for this sawmill". Phooey! In fact Daishowa is not "cutting or using forest resources from anywhere within the (so-called) Lubicon area of concern" only because of a herculean effort by the Lubicons and Lubicon supporters to block repeated attempts by Daishowa to clearcut Lubicon trees -- attempts by Daishowa which have included, among other things, Daishowa "acquiring" Brewster Construction specifically to try and circumvent the now denied agreement between Daishowa and the Lubicons. (At the time of the Brewster "acquisition" Daishowa wasn't denying that there was an agreement with the Lubicons but only that its subsidiary Brewster Construction -- purchased after the agreement with the Lubicons was made -- wasn't covered by this agreement.) As for the Lubicons only "recently" defining their area of concern -- an interesting choice of words obviously intended to create another fallacious impression -- it of course depends on how one defines the word "recent". Certainly the Lubicons were asserting their legitimate jurisdiction over unceded traditional Lubicon territory well before any non-aboriginal person ever set foot in Lubicon territory; well before there was a country called Canada; well before there was a Province called Alberta and well before there was a Japanese forest monster called Daishowa ravaging the world's forests. Moreover the Lubicon people had specifically defined their traditional territory publicly and in the Canadian Courts at least 8 years before Daishowa supposedly obtained rights to Lubicon trees from the Alberta Provincial Government; the Lubicon struggle had been front page international news for at least 4 years by the time Daishowa supposedly obtained rights to Lubicon trees from the Alberta Provincial Government; the Lubicon struggle complete with related maps of the traditional Lubicon territory was front page news specifically in reaction to the announcement that Daishowa had supposedly obtained the rights to Lubicon trees from the Alberta Provincial Government, and the Lubicons themselves provided Daishowa with a map outlining the traditional Lubicon territory pursuant to and immediately following negotiation of the now denied March 7, 1988 agreement between Daishowa and the Lubicons. Cascading fallacious illusion upon fallacious illusion, as though one fallacious illusion has no relationship to the other, Mr. Hamaoka's so- called "Fact Book" next poses the question to Daishowa "Has Daishowa- Marubeni agreed not to cut or use forest resources from the Lubicon area of concern until the Lubicon land claim has been settled with the federal and provincial governments?" Daishowa's answer to itself, incredibly, is "No, to agree not to cut for an indefinite time could mean the closure of the Brewster sawmill...(and)...Daishowa-Marubeni does not believe that the Lubicon people or Lubicon supporters wish to threaten the jobs of the (Daishowa-owned) Brewster sawmill workers who had traditionally used a small quantity of logs from the disputed Lubicon area of concern for 15 years without incident". That's a bit much even for Mr. Hamaoka and more than anything suggests his complete lack of regard for the literacy and intelligence of Daishowa's Canadian customers. Nobody who knows anything about the internationally publicized and well-known struggle of the Lubicon people, or for that matter about the internationally publicized and well-known misadventures of the Daishowa forest monster, could conceivably for one moment believe that Daishowa is going through all of these top level contortions over a few jobs in a small Daishowa-owned sawmill -- especially when Daishowa clearly didn't even buy Brewster for its piddling little sawmill but as a tactic to try and circumvent the agreement with the Lubicon people to stay out of the unceded Lubicon territory until there's a settlement of Lubicon land rights and an agreement negotiated with the Lubicon people respecting Lubicon wildlife and environmental concerns. Mr. Hamaoka's so-called "Fact Book" asks Daishowa "Does the Daishowa- Marubeni Peace River pulp mill utilize advanced protection technology to meet environmental standards?" The answer Daishowa gives itself, not surprisingly, is "Yes, our mill uses advanced process technologies that reduce the amount of chlorine bleaching required". It says "These systems, combined with modern effluent treatment equipment and processes, ensure that the water and air resources are protected". And it claims that "Daishowa-Marubeni operates well within very strict licenced (sic) limits for major effluent quality parameters, including biological oxygen demand, total suspended solids and absorbable organochlorides". (This is a technical area where the Lubicons are advised by environmentalists that Daishowa's Peace River pulp mill in fact represents the ultimate development of the environmentally worst kind of outmoded pulp mill technology; namely, a bleached kraft pulp mill. As for meeting "very strict licenced (sic) limits for major effluent quality parameters", Alberta Provincial environmental standards are in fact industry (self) monitored (with predictable results), are generally recognized as inadequate and are seldom enforced even when it becomes unavoidably clear and publicly admitted that prescribed limits are being dramatically and continuously exceeded.) Mr. Hamaoka's so-called "Fact Book" asks Daishowa "Does Daishowa-Marubeni replace what it cuts down?" Again not surprisingly the answer Daishowa gives itself is "Yes, all areas logged by Daishowa-Marubeni in Alberta are reforested and must meet strict Alberta Government free-to-grow standards". In fact reforestation in Alberta is an internationally recognized scandal and Alberta is known to environmentalists around the world, along with the neighbouring Canadian Province of British Columbia, as the "Brazil of the North". Exactly how much logged forest is actually being reforested is another matter of continuing controversy but for sure reforestation in Alberta -- like the monitoring of pulp mill effluent -- is officially the responsibility of the involved forestry company; forestry companies are given a ten year grace period before they have any responsibility for reforestation and even the Provincial Government admits that nearly 40% of reforestation efforts in the Province are a failure. Mr. Hamaoka"s so-called "Fact Book" asks Daishowa "Is the forest ecosystem in northern Alberta threatened by Daishowa-Marubeni's management practices?" Again the answer which Daishowa predictably provides itself is "No, on the contrary Daishowa-Marubeni is managing the forest resources on a sustained yield basis through a well planned harvesting and reforestation process, incorporating public input, which parallels the natural cycle of burning and renewal" (or, as one wag put it, "better than God himself"). In fact so-called "public input", like the monitoring of effluent and supposed reforestation in Alberta, was again orchestrated by Daishowa itself where and when and however Daishowa saw fit. Daishowa didn't see fit to seek input from the Lubicons at all, for example, claiming that they'd been advised by the Alberta Provincial Government that consulting with the aboriginal owners of the land Daishowa was proposing to clearcut might "jeopardize (non-existent) land claim negotiations". Moreover to suggest that clearcut logging "parallels the natural cycle of (forest fires) and renewal" is just simply long since discredited hogwash. Dehydrating the northern Alberta forest and shipping it off to Japan for processing into paper products is significantly different than a natural process of forest fires and renewal, which, among other things, doesn't ship the involved biomass out of North American altogether (or at least until considerable value has been added providing Japanese jobs and contributing to the Japanese economy). Lastly Mr. Hamaoka's so-called "Fact Book" has the unmitigated gall to have Daishowa ask itself "Is Daishowa-Marubeni cutting or using timber from the Wood Buffalo National Park?" That's one which you'd think Daishowa would like everybody to forget but apparently not if you believe that your readers are complete illiterate morons and your purpose is to simply and unabashedly to re-write well-documented history. Daishowa's direct and straight forward answer to its Wood Buffalo Park question is "No, Daishowa-Marubeni does not have a logging lease in the Park, or manage a logging operation there". (Maybe not in the strict legal sense or at the moment but Daishowa's infamous and duplicitous involvement with the clearcutting of Wood Buffalo Park is in fact a matter of incontrovertible public record.) For those who don't already know it Wood Buffalo National Park is an area to the north of the traditional Lubicon territory. It contains the largest remaining stand of giant white spruce in Alberta and is an area of international ecological significance recognized by the United Nations as having the same World Heritage Site status as the Pyramids and the Grand Canyon. In the 1940s a company called Canadian Forest Products (Canfor) obtained a 49,700 hectare (124,250 acre) logging lease in Wood Buffalo Park from the Canadian Federal Government allowing it to clearcut 98% of the harvestable timber. That lease contained none of the minimal cutting and reforestation standards normally required today. In 1982 renewal of that same lease was rubber-stamped until the year 2002 -- apparently without any kind of critical review and still without incorporating the most minimal cutting and reforestation standards. In 1990 Daishowa purchased all of Canfor's Alberta operations with the exception of the Wood Buffalo Park logging lease. The Wood Buffalo logging lease was deliberately left in the name of Canfor in order that Daishowa could avoid having to re-negotiate the extremely advantageous terms of that lease. As a condition of the sale, however, all of the logs clearcut in Wood Buffalo Park under the Canfor logging lease would go exclusively to Daishowa. That's what Mr. Hamaoka means when he says "Daishowa-Marubeni does not have a logging lease in the Park, or manage a logging operation there". In fact that's the kind of slimy, deceitful word game he plays most of the time making him both difficult and unpleasant to deal with. According to an internal Canadian Parks Service report embarrassed Parks officials had high hopes of renegotiating the archaic terms of the Canfor lease prior to Daishowa's "acquisition" of Canfor. Those negotiations predictably broke down when Canfor sold its Alberta interests to Daishowa. Parks officials were quoted publicly as saying that they "suspect(ed) that Daishowa is not interested in re-negotiating because it arranged the sale so that Canfor retains ownership of the lease in its own name while Daishowa gets exclusive rights to the timber". (You sure can't slip anything past those stalwart guardians of the Canadian public interest -- except maybe archaic lease terms in the first place.) Following Daishowa's "acquisition" of Canfor the rate at which Wood Buffalo Park was being clearcut nearly doubled -- from 130,000 cubic metres to 220,000 cubic metres of wood per year. At that increased rate it was expected that all of the remaining harvestable timber would be clearcut by 1995 -- well before the end of the lease in 2002. The Daishowa plan clearly was to clearcut all of the remaining timber before the world community realized what was going on and put a stop to it. The story about what was going on in Wood Buffalo Park hit the newspapers in October of 1990. By December of 1990 all hell was breaking loose with front page stories describing the pillage in gory detail, critical editorials and appeals for the United Nations to intervene. By January of 1991 public pressure had become so extreme that then Federal Energy Minister Robert de Cotret felt compelled to announce that the Federal Government was going to try and buy back the Wood Buffalo Park logging lease. Daishowa responded by stepping up logging operations in the Park to 24 hours a day and indicating through Canfor that Canfor would be "receptive to the idea (of the Federal Government buying back the lease) as long as Daishowa's interest in the Wood Buffalo timber is satisfied by other sources". In May of 1991 it was learned that Daishowa's terms for selling back the Wood Buffalo lease to the Federal Government included a ten-year, $12.5 million interest free loan; money to cover the cost of replanting all of the trees which it has harvested since 1982 and the right to continue clearcutting Wood Buffalo Park for another year. Shrewd Federal Government negotiators countered with an offer to allow "contractors for Daishowa" to continue clearcutting Wood Buffalo Park for another two years if they would pay their own reforestation costs. In the meantime of course "contractors for Daishowa" were literally working 24 hours a day to clearcut as much of Wood Buffalo Park as possible. In September of 1991 Parks officials admitted that the clearcutting of Wood Buffalo Park "will continue for at least another year... (and)...could continue indefinitely if the current negotiations continue as they have for the past few months". In fact there had been no negotiations since the non-productive exchange of offers the previous May "because no common ground for an agreement has been found". In December of 1991, under burgeoning pressure from environmentalists, New Federal Environment Minister Jean Charest took another unsuccessful run at Daishowa. Following the meeting a senior advisor to the Minister indicated that "the price for the buy-out is the chief stumbling block". The Ministerial advisor said that the two sides "are really at an early stage in the negotiations...(and that)...it would be adventurous if not stupid to put a date on when the public might expect a resolution to the issue". In the meantime of course "contractors for Daishowa" were continuing to clearcut as much of Wood Buffalo Park as possible. Finally in January of 1992, in a manner strongly reminiscent of Daishowa's reluctant decision under pressure to at least temporarily stay out of the unceded Lubicon area, Daishowa/Canfor announced that they would not be proceeding with clearcut logging of Wood Buffalo Park at this time. However, also in a manner strongly reminiscent of Daishowa's position on clearcut logging of the unceded Lubicon territory, Daishowa/Canfor made clear that they reserved the "option" to return to clearcutting Wood Buffalo National Park at any time based on the lease which they argue gives them the right to do so until the year 2002. The "option" they were really reserving for themselves, of course -- again like in the Lubicon case -- is to proceed again in either or both places based upon their continuing assessment of what they think they can get away with. What Daishowa figures they can get away with depends on how the rest of us react to their deceitful machinations. Let them know that people haven't forgotten the increasingly desperate plight of the Lubicons by supporting the boycott of Daishowa paper products. And let candidates for Parliament in the up-coming Federal election also know that people haven't forgotten the increasingly desperate plight of the Lubicons by pressing them to publicly accept and support the recommendations of the Lubicon Settlement Commission. (Continued in part 2)