[IPSM] [Fwd: Fwd: Fw: confrontation pending between Lubicon and TransCanada]

[Macdonald Stainsby]

Another act by a major supplier to the 2010 Games to destroy a nation 
for the tar sands...

TransCanada Pipelines (TCPL) is am official supplier to the Olympics.
This is only one of the major pipelines they are building, and only one 
nation who is being pushed to the wall by tar sands development.

More reasons that these genocidal issues are one and the same.

There is a full pdf, write me privately if you want it.

Macdonald


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Subject: Fwd: Fw: confrontation pending between Lubicon and TransCanada


fyi

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makes me want to go put up another road block

--
Today the Alberta Utilities Commission released it's decision approving
construction of TransCanada's huge new gas pipeline across unceded Lubicon
land over Lubicon objections. The timing of the decision fits perfectly with
the construction schedule officials of TransCanada have been talking about
since before making application to the AUC.

Officials of TransCanada have been saying all along that they intended to
commence construction by mid-October effectively making a mockery of the
mock Alberta regulatory process. Mid-October is of course next week.

A copy of the AUC decision is attached. It says "the Commission will issue a
permit and licence to construct and operate two pipelines...and associated
compression facilities...in due course". "Due course" in this context almost
certainly means in the next few days.

Construction of the new pipeline by a TransCanada work force of 600 will
likely commence shortly if not immediately after issuance of the related
permit and licence. Pipeline construction is expected to face unspecified
Lubicon opposition. The Lubicons have made clear all along that they will
not allow construction of the pipeline across Lubicon land over their
objections.

The AUC "order" approving the TransCanada pipeline is found on page 46 of
the decision. Pages 44 and 45 of the decision make brief self-serving
reference to the Lubicon objection.

The AUC decision says  the Lubicon Lake Indian Nation failed to provide
"detailed information in support of its allegation of aboriginal rights or
to indicate the area within which its members exercised the asserted
rights". It says the Lubicon Lake Indian Nation was "given a further
opportunity to provide the Commission with additional information on how
they might be directly and adversely affected by the Commission's decision
on the Application".

The AUC decision says the Lubicon Lake Indian Nation "responded in a letter
that reiterated its assertions about unceded aboriginal territory and the
Commission's lack of jurisdiction to determine the rights held by the
Lubicon Lake Nation", but did not "provide any information about specific
aboriginal rights its members exercised in the vicinity of the proposed gas
utility pipeline, or otherwise where those rights might be exercised, or the
manner in which those rights may be directly and adversely affected by the
Commission's decision on the Application". Needless to say the Lubicons did
not question the Commission's lack of jurisdiction to determine Lubicon
rights but lack of Commission jurisdiction to approve construction of
TransCanada's pipeline across unceded Lubicon land.

"As a result", the AUC decision says, "the Commission confirmed in a letter
dated May 8, 2008, that Lubicon Lake Indian Nation...has not demonstrated
that it had standing for purposes of the Application". That's a euphemistic
way of saying that the AUC denied the Lubicons standing in the AUC hearing
of TransCanada's application to build a major new gas pipeline across
unceded Lubicon land.

The careful choice of language used in the AUC decision makes it sound as
though the Commission bent over backwards in an effort to accommodate
Lubicon concerns but the Lubicons refused to meet perfectly reasonable AUC
requirements. The brutal truth is quite different.

It is the position of the provincial regulatory agencies that they have no
jurisdiction to decide their own jurisdiction. They are therefore flatly
unprepared to consider the implications of their  approving resource
projects on land not properly under provincial jurisdiction.

When they talk about "detailed information in support of (the Lubicon)
allegation of...specific aboriginal rights its members exercised in the
vicinity of the proposed gas utility  pipeline", the AUC is not talking
about unceded Lubicon aboriginal land rights but aboriginal rights
recognized under Canadian law to hunt, trap and fish on land not needed by
the Canadian government for something else subject to Canadian law and
regulation by Canadian government. The way it's put in Treaty 8 -- which
purports to cede the aboriginal land rights of the aboriginal people in the
surrounding area but to which the Lubicons are not a party -- is  "said
Indians (not including the Lubicons) shall have the right to pursue their
usual vocations of hunting, trapping and fishing throughout the tract
surrendered as heretofore described, subject to such regulations as may from
time to time be made by the Government of the country, acting under the
authority of Her Majesty, and saving and excepting such tracts as may be
required or taken up from time to time for settlement, mining, lumbering,
trading or other purposes".

When the AUC talks about rights that might be "directly and adversely
affected" by a proposed resource project they are not talking about unceded
Lubicon aboriginal land rights but the rights the AUC has to consider under
their provincial enabling legislation which the province re-defined last
December -- expressly to facilitate the rapid-fire rubber-stamping of
resource project applications -- as consisting only of private property
rights recognized under provincial law.

And the third thing they're talking about are some shameful recent Canadian
court decisions that say that the government has the legal duty to consult
with aboriginal people before proceeding with things that infringe upon such
surface aboriginal rights as hunting, trapping and fishing -- and to make a
so-called good faith effort to reach accommodation with regard to
infringement of those rights as evidenced by meeting with the aboriginal
people a sufficient number of times and involving people with sufficiently
important sounding titles -- but not necessarily to reach accommodation with
the aboriginal people before proceeding.  (One wag has suggested that the
legal duty to consult aboriginal people under Canadian law is tantamount to
saying that it's legally permissible to rape someone just as long as you
tell them in advance that you're going to do and how you're going to do it.)

What all of this comes down to in the context of the AUC decision is that
the AUC was not prepared to take unceded Lubicon aboriginal land rights into
account in making their decision on approval of TransCanada's major new gas
pipeline across unceded Lubicon land but only such things as whether a
Lubicon trapping cabin might be destroyed by pipeline construction -- which
might give rise to limited financial compensation or even possibly a slight
adjustment in the proposed pipeline route -- and also to require TransCanada
to feign a good faith effort to reach accommodation with the Lubicons -- but
not for a moment to allow infringement of even recognized surface aboriginal
rights to significantly impact proposed project plans.

That's what all this "specific aboriginal rights" talk in the AUC decision
is all about. It has nothing to do with attempting to take unceded Lubicon
land rights into account.

TransCanada, under this dubious if not outright fraudulent provincial
authorization, will now undoubtedly attempt to undertake construction of
this major new gas pipeline across unceded Lubicon land. .