Friends of the Lubicon
PO Box 444 Stn D,
Etobicoke ON M9A 4X4
Tel: (416) 763-7500
Email: fol (at) tao (dot) ca
www.lubicon.ca
May 23, 2006
Below please find some media coverage regarding the latest United Nations report condemning Canada’s treatment of the Lubicon people. (for further information on the report, please see here.)
Edmonton Sun
May 23, 2006
By Michelle Mark
The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is sending a strong message to the federal Tories to resolve outstanding issues with the Lubicon Cree.
After calling the feds to Geneva earlier this month to answer to Canada's record on key social, economic and cultural rights, the committee released its conclusions Friday.
"The committee strongly recommends that the state party resume negotiations with the Lubicon Lake Band, with a view to finding a solution to the claims of the band that ensures the enjoyment of their rights under the covenant,'' states the report.
"The committee also strongly recommends the state party conduct effective consultation with the band prior to the grant of licences for economic purposes in the disputed land, and to ensure that such activities do not jeopardize the rights recognized under the covenant."
Lubicon spokesman Kevin Thomas said although similar recommendations have been handed down by other UN committees, it is rare for the UN to use the word "strongly" in its conclusions.
"They've upped the ante. It sounds like a very clear and simple message. Somebody in Geneva is getting frustrated."
The federal government has yet to respond to Lubicon requests to resume negotiations, said Thomas.
"They're going to have to be called upon to take ownership of this whether they like it or not," he added.
Federal Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice could not be reached for comment yesterday.
The Edmonton Journal
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Kelly Cryderman
EDMONTON - The United Nations has issued another report criticizing Ottawa for failing to reach an agreement with Alberta’s Lubicon band in a land claim dispute dating back to 1939.
"The committee strongly recommends that the state party resume negotiations with the Lubicon Lake Band, with a view to finding a solution to the claims of the band," said a report released this week.
The UN's Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights -- under the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights -- said the Canadian government should conduct effective consultations with the band prior to licences being granted for use of land the Lubicon claim to own.
Last November, in a separate report, the UN Human Rights committee urged Ottawa to make every effort to resume talks and said the Lubicon continue to be compromised by logging and large-scale oil and gas extraction.
Kevin Thomas, an adviser for the band, said the newest UN report uses the strongest diplomatic language possible to insist Ottawa move forward with negotiations.
"Now Canada is basically getting drawn in front of more and more UN bodies and they keep on ignoring the recommendations," Thomas said. "You have to wonder when the message will get through."
Thomas said Stephen Harper's Conservative government has to take action now that it has power and can no longer blame the Liberals for a lack of movement on the issue. The last round of talks between the Lubicon and Ottawa broke off more than two years ago.
But the Lubicon band is still looking for a self-governance agreement along with money to establish a reserve on 250 square kilometres of land around Little Buffalo in northern Alberta.
It also wants $120 million in compensation for energy and forestry development that has already gone ahead.
In total, the band wants the government to pay more than $200 million.
Thomas said the federal government has constitutional responsibility for this issue, but the Alberta government "having profited quite handily from this land should play some role."
Alberta Aboriginal Affairs spokesman Jason Gariepy said Monday he believes the band is satisfied with the land set aside by the provincial government for a reserve should a settlement eventually be reached.
"For the most part, it appears to be that the dispute is between the federal government and the Lubicon," Gariepy said.
"It's up to those two parties to sit down and to work out whatever outstanding issues they have."
A spokesman for the federal department of Indian Affairs was not available Monday. In the past, Ottawa has blamed the band for the impasse.
Toronto Star
May 23, 2006
John Goddard
Staff Reporter
Welfare benefits in most provinces have dropped in value in the past 10 years and often amount to less than half of basic living costs, a UN watchdog group charged yesterday.
The employment insurance program needs to be more accessible, minimum wages don't meet basic needs, and homelessness and inadequate housing amount to a "national emergency," says the UN body's report from Geneva.
The watchdog committee is formally called the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It last examined Canada's performance in 1998, and sat for three weeks this month taking submissions on five countries including Monaco, Liechtenstein, Morocco and Mexico.
Its sharp criticism of Canada on poverty issues echoes that voiced last week by a special Toronto task force of experts ranging from bankers to community advocates, particularly on questions of employment insurance and help for the working poor.
On employment insurance, the UN body reported: "In 2001, only 39 per cent of unemployed Canadians were eligible for benefits ... (and in) Ontario eligibility rates were even lower."
In Toronto, the local task force said the eligibility figure stands at 22 per cent.
"Minimum wages in all provinces," the UN report said, "are insufficient to enable workers and their families to enjoy a decent standard of living." About 51 per cent of people using food banks, it also said, are receiving inadequate social insurance benefits.
In the same vein, the Toronto task force said hundreds of thousands of working-age Ontarians are living in poverty and it would take $4.6 billion a year in overhauled government programs to lift them out of it.
"Having been present at the review, I can tell you that the committee was dismayed to find that social assistance rates in Canada bear no resemblance to the actual cost of living," said Emily Paradis of the Feminist Organization for Women's Advancement of Rights, or Forward, a group concerned with homelessness.
The UN body had much to say about aboriginal rights, singling out the Lubicon Lake Cree of northern Alberta for special mention.
Using the uncommonly forceful diplomatic term "strongly recommends," the committee called on Canada to reopen land-rights talks and consult the Lubicon "prior to the grant of licences for economic purposes on disputed land."
The Alberta government plans to auction oil sands licences to 50,000 hectares of traditional Lubicon lands on June 14, Lubicon band negotiator Kevin Thomas said in a phone interview explaining the reference.
No land negotiations have taken place since 2003, he said.
Canada has done nothing to end discrimination against women with Indian status in matters of matrimonial property, the committee also said.
"When a status woman marries a non-status man she loses her status and all the rights that go with it (under federal law)," said Doreen Silversmith of the Six Nations Confederacy of southwestern Ontario, who attended the Geneva meetings.
By comparison, a status man marrying a non-status woman keeps his status.
"It's discrimination," Silversmith said. "It still hasn't been resolved."
Relative to the general population, poverty rates remain disproportionately high among "aboriginal peoples, African-Canadians, immigrants, persons with disabilities, youth, low-income women and single mothers," the report said.
The same gap exists when it comes to access to water, health, housing and education, it said. And aboriginal and African-Canadian families "are over-represented in families whose children are relinquished to foster care."
The UN committee congratulated Canada on progress in some areas.
Fewer people are living below what the federal government calls the "low-income cut-off" line and others call the poverty line. The rate improved to 11.2 per cent in 2004 compared to 13.7 per cent in 1998.
Maternity and parental benefits have been extended to one year from six months, the committee said approvingly.
Disparities between aboriginal people and the rest of the population narrowed regarding infant mortality and high school enrolment. Measures were taken toward equal pay for equal work. And foreign aid currently stands at 0.33 per cent of gross domestic product, up from 0.27 per cent in 2004, the UN committee said.
In London yesterday, Amnesty International reported that the focus on counter-terrorism and public security in developed countries is draining attention from crises afflicting the poor and underprivileged.
In its 2006 annual report, the human rights watchdog also urged the UN to address abuses in the Darfur region of western Sudan, where violence has killed more than 180,000 people and displaced 2.5 million since 2003.
Amnesty also urged Washington to close the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and asked for full disclosure on prisoners implicated elsewhere in the "war on terror."
with files from the associated press
CBC News
Edmonton
May 23, 2006
A United Nations committee is once again urging the federal government to settle a land claim with the Lubicon Cree of northern Alberta.
The UN made the latest request in a report from the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Geneva. It's the second time the UN has asked Canada to settle the dispute.
The Lubicon, a band of about 500 people in the Peace River region north of Edmonton, have never signed a land-claims settlement with the federal government. Land claim negotiations broke down three years ago prompting the band to send a delegation to Geneva to ask the UN committee for help.
Fred Lennarson, an advisor to the Lubicon First Nation, says he's hoping Canada acts on the UN report, but he says similar reports have not helped the Lubicon cause.
"The problem is that Canada has, in the past, at least so far, misrepresented these decisions to Canadians and misrepresented what was going on in Canada to the United Nations," Lennarson said. "I would hope that this new Harper government would do better than that — but that's the sorry history."
Lennarson adds that the latest report doesn't put Canada in a very favourable light.
"Once can only wonder how much it will take before Canada gets the message — before the Canadian government gets the message — especially when Canada is a country that likes to hold itself up to the world as a leader in the area of human rights."
Lennarson says the report also advises the federal government to consult with the Lubicon before granting licences for any economic activity like oil and gas exploration or forestry.
The committee notes that while most Canadians have a high standard of living, many aboriginal groups continue to struggle.
CKYL Radio, Peace River
May 22, 2006
The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights released a report in Geneva this week criticizing Canada for failing to resolve a long-standing land claims dispute. The Committee strongly recommended the Federal Government resume negotiations with the Lubicon Lake First Nation and ensure there is no exploitation of natural resources without proper consultation with the band. Lubicon Advisor Kevin Thomas says Alberta started an auction for leases on 50 000 hectares of disputed land for oil sands exploration, and just last week sold leases on another 1408 hectares for regular oil and gas development without notifying the Lubicon. This is the third time Canada has been condemned by the United Nations. The UN first criticized the Federal Government for its handling of the dispute in 1990. The band has been fighting for a reserve since 1939.
CanWest News Service
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Steven Edwards, with files from Carly Weeks
UNITED NATIONS - Canada is accused of failing the country's poor in a United Nations report released Monday on Ottawa's record for meeting internationally agreed economic, social and cultural rights.
The independent experts behind the report say minimum wage and social assistance levels are too low to give people receiving them an ''adequate standard of living'' and recommends they should be increased.
They also want Canada to make unemployment benefits more widely available including to foreign workers who lose their jobs after arriving to do seasonal work, such as picking apples.
The recommendations of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights come after Canada sent a delegation to appear before panelists in Geneva to explain how the country is respecting the UN's social rights covenant.
They are not binding, but the panel holds considerable moral sway as overseer of the covenant, which Canada has signed and ratified.
''It's clear that people are better protected in Canada than in many other countries, but the yardstick is different for each country, and the committee looks at the national best each can provide,'' said one committee official.
The committee identifies the most disadvantaged as Aboriginals, African-Canadians, immigrants, disabled people, young people, single mothers and women earning low wages.
''The committee is concerned that, despite Canada's economic prosperity and the reduction of the number of people living below the Low Income Cut Off (poverty indicator), 11.2 per cent of its population still lived in poverty in 2004,'' says the 11-page report.
The panelists urge Ottawa to provide ''adequate child care services'' as a way of allowing women to exercise their right to work, as guaranteed by the covenant.
The recommendations are sure to clash with priorities set by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government. The federal budget, tabled earlier this month, was met with sharp criticism by poverty-reduction advocates, who said its tax-relief measures helped only the middle class. Aboriginal groups also accused the Tories of failing to commit to the $5.1-billion agreement to fight Aboriginal poverty.
''There is room for improvement in every country ... and the observations of the committee will be given careful consideration,'' said Marie-Christine Lilkoff, spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Some groups said the committee's recommendations smack too much of traditional left-of-centre remedies that, they argue, do not work.
''It's not clear what the United Nations has against low-income workers because raising the minimum wage inevitably pushes many of them outside the workforce,'' said Fred McMahon, international studies director with the Fraser Institute.
''The United Nations should recognize that Canada is a democracy, and that we just elected a government that has a right to set its own policies.''
But activist groups who made their own presentations to the committee welcomed the report.
''The convention is the prevailing understanding internationally of what constitutes economic and social rights, and this report shows Canada is out of synch,'' said Dennis Howlett of the Ottawa-based National Anti-Poverty Organization.
While the committee expressed impatience that Canada has in the past dragged its feet or even ignored earlier committee recommendations, Amnesty International program director Alain Roy is among those who say this time will be different.
''Canada was recently elected to the new Human Rights Council at the UN on the pledge it would listen to and respect these other rights committees, so we expect Canada to implement the recommendations,'' he said.
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