[IPSM] North Central Corridor Pipeline construction can't start: Lubicon Cree

[Macdonald Stainsby]

TransCanada Pipelines is an official supplier to the 2010 Games.




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.html