We wrote back to Mr. McKnight on May 18th expressing interest in further discussions on the membership question, pointing out we were not proposing that Mr. Fulton be a "third party" to the negotiations but rather a mediator, advising Mr. McKnight of statements by Provincial officials that it was up to the Federal Government to either release or not release the Fulton Discussion Paper, and therefore asking Mr. McKnight to reconsider his position regarding Mr. Fulton's re- involvement and public release of the Fulton Discussion Paper. Tasse's resignation over conflict of interest charges was publicly confirmed by Federal officials on July 8, 1987. A month later, on August 6th, we received a letter from Mr. McKnight acknowledging our letter of May 18th, indicating that he was "encouraged" by our willingness to discuss the membership question, formally advising us of Mr. Tasse's resignation, ignoring our request that he reconsider Mr. Fulton's re- involvement, ignoring our request that he reconsider public release of the Fulton Discussion Paper, and informing us that "Mr. Tasse's decision (to resign) will lead to a delay in renewing negotiations while a replacement negotiator is sought". We responded to Mr. McKnight's August 6th letter the same day, reiterating our willingness to hear what he had to say on the question of membership, but also reminding him of our earlier proposal to re- involve Mr. Fulton and publicly release the Fulton Discussion Paper. On the same day that we were acknowledging his letter telling us that the Federal Government wouldn't be able to resume negotiations until a new Lubicon negotiator had been appointed, Mr. McKnight was in Calgary telling reporters that we were refusing to negotiate. He said: "Ottawa has offered to sit down with the Alberta Band and negotiate a settlement but until the Band agrees, there's nothing the Federal Government can do... You can't force a people to negotiate." On August 26, 1987, Provincial Government officials confirmed that nearly a third of our people were suffering from tuberculosis, compared to only one out of 100,000 Canadians. Provincial medical personnel acknowledged that a tuberculosis epidemic of this magnitude was likely caused by low resistance to infectious disease related to destruction of our traditional economy and way of life. The next day, facing renewed charges of genocide triggered by announcement of the tuberculosis epidemic, Mr. McKnight wrote us a letter responding to our letter of August 6th. Contrary to his public statements that we were refusing to negotiate, Mr. McKnight again acknowledged our expressed willingness to discuss the membership question. He said that the Federal Government was still unable to proceed due to lack of a Federal negotiator, but that he expected "to be in a position to advise (us) in the near future as to who the new negotiator will be and will be contacting (us) at that time to arrange the necessary details for resuming negotiations". As for our requests to reinvolve Mr. Fulton and publicly release the Fulton Discussion Paper, he said: "In regard to your requests for a third party at the negotiating table and for the public release of the Revised Discussion Paper prepared by Mr. Fulton, I must reiterate the position I outlined to you in my letter of May 1, 1987. You will recall at that time I firmly stated my belief that this issue must be addressed, in the first instance, between ourselves through the previously agreed upon bilateral framework which has seen the successful resolution of other land claims. At that time I also stated that I was not prepared to unilaterally breach the confidentiality and privilege the Province of Alberta attaches to Mr. Fulton's paper..." On October 5, 1987 Mr. McKnight announced the appointment of a Calgary lawyer named Brian Malone as the new Lubicon negotiator. Asked about the Lubicon proposal that Mr. Fulton be reinvolved as an independent mediator responsible to the Parliamentary Standing Committee, Mr. McKnight said, "Fulton's too busy". Contacted by reporters about Mr. McKnight's remark that he was "too busy", Mr. Fulton reconfirmed his continuing commitment "to do anything to help, whether as negotiator, arbitrator or mediator". Moreover, Mr. Fulton said, he'd recently written Mr. McKnight reconfirming his continuing commitment and availability. Contacted by reporters about his new appointment as Lubicon negotiator, Mr. Malone announced that one of his first moves would be to get "in touch with the Province", since, according to Mr. Malone, "it's Provincial land that the Band is claiming". On October 10,1987, Mr. Malone met with Lubicon lawyer O'Reilly. Mr O'Reilly told Mr. Malone that Mr. McKnight had begged the question of Mr. Fulton's reinvolvement with the position that there were different ways to interpret the Fulton Discussion Paper, and that Mr. McKnight's stated reasons for not reinvolving Mr. Fulton simply weren't tenable. As for Mr. Malone's public statement that "it's Provincial land that the Band is claiming", Mr. O'Reilly told Mr. Malone that the Lubicon people rejected Provincial Government claims to unceded Lubicon land. Mr. Malone apologized for his depiction of Lubicon land as belonging to the Provincial Government, agreeing that he shouldn't have taken a position on an arguable legal issue. He admitted that he wasn't familiar with the intricacies of Indian law nor the constitutional aspects of the land transfer agreement. Regarding Lubicon proposals to reinvolve Mr. Fulton and publicly release the Fulton Discussion Paper, Mr. Malone said that he'd consult with Mr. Fulton and get back to Mr. O'Reilly. On October 22nd Mr. Malone phoned Mr. O'Reilly and told Mr. O'Reilly that he had a growing appreciation of the complexities of the situation. He said that he wanted to study the issues and consult the parties before deciding on an approach. He said that he'd already met with Mr. McKnight and Mr. Tasse. He said that he had a meeting scheduled with Mr. Fulton for October 27th and Provincial officials for October 29th. He asked to meet with Mr. O'Reilly again on November 2nd. He promised Mr. O'Reilly that he wouldn't make any decisions about how to proceed until after he'd spoken to Mr. Fulton and met with Mr. O'Reilly on November 2nd. On October 26th, prior to speaking with Mr. Fulton and getting back to Mr. O'Reilly, Mr. Malone announced that he'd decided "to invite Fulton to sit in on negotiations as a conciliator and chairman"--but reporting to no one. Regarding earlier agreement to use the Fulton Discussion Paper as the starting point for negotiations, Mr. Malone denied that he was "required" to use Mr. Fulton's "suggestions" as the starting point. He said that Mr. Fulton's "suggestions" were only "guidelines" and "not binding". Mr. Malone also announced, contrary to Mr. McKnight's supposedly firm refusal "to entertain any third parties at the negotiating table", that he'd "decided to invite the Provincial Government to join the negotiations as an equal". He said that "Provincial Government involvement is necessary because", according to Mr. Malone, "the Provincial Government is responsible for wildlife management, environmental protection and the land where the Lubicons want a reserve". "If the Lubicons are serious about wanting the deal", Mr. Malone said, "then stop the nonsense--let the Province come". Thus in one stroke Mr. Malone broke his agreement with Mr. O'Reilly to talk to Mr. Fulton and get back to Mr. O'Reilly before deciding how to proceed, proposed to emasculate Mr. Fulton's role in negotiations, reneged on the agreement made at the time the Fulton Inquiry was prematurely terminated to use the Fulton Discussion Paper as the starting point for negotiations, and gave the Provincial Government an effective veto, based in neither law nor history, over the Federal Government's ability to negotiate a settlement of our aboriginal land rights. Two days later, on October 28th, Provincial Attorney General Jim Horsman issued a press statement announcing the appointment of a Provincial Lubicon negotiator and calling for the public release of the Fulton Discussion Paper. A spokesman for Mr. Horsman told reporters that the Province was prepared to accept the membership list agreed upon between the Federal Government and the Lubicon people and transfer land on that basis. The spokesman also said that the Province was prepared to join the negotiations or negotiate with Ottawa after agreement had been reached between the Lubicons and the Federal Government. The Provincial statement generated some very optimistic news coverage predicting early settlement, since it appeared that the Province no longer intended to block settlement, but was rather prepared to meet it's obligations under the land transfer agreement in the way such obligations had always been met in the past; namely, by simply transferring back to Federal jurisdiction the land which the Federal Government required to settle aboriginal land rights. This positive press coverage was then circulated widely among museums supporting our Olympic boycott, urging them to reconsider, since settlement was supposedly imminent. Based on this positive press coverage some European museums in fact reconsidered their support for our boycott and agreed to loan artifacts. The next day, October 29th, Mr. Horsman told reporters that his spokesman had been misquoted. He denied that the Provincial Government was willing to transfer the amount of land agreed between the Federal Government and the Lubicon people. He said: "We still must be convinced the proper numbers of members of the band are accounted for before we turn over the land as required under (the land transfer agreement). Regarding proposed release of the Fulton Discussion Paper, the Provincial spokesman said: "It's out there anyway, so we might as well release it". The corrected Provincial Government position was then of course also reported in the press, making clear that settlement was not so imminent after all. This less optimistic news coverage was not shared with the European museums, however, although it was available at the time the more optimistic press coverage was being used to support the argument that artifacts should be loaned because settlement was supposedly imminent. On November 2nd Mr. O'Reilly told Mr. Malone that Mr. Malone's proposal to reinvolve Mr. Fulton as a conciliator and chairman responsible to no one wasn't acceptable. He told Mr. Malone that the Federal Government should either agree to the reinvolvement of Mr. Fulton as a mediator responsible to the Standing Committee or be prepared to spell out publicly their reasons for not doing so. He pointed out Mr. Fulton's excellent credentials and unmatched experience. He pointed out that Mr. Fulton had been appointed BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT to conduct an inquiry into the Lubicon situation and had spent nearly a full year conducting that inquiry. He pointed out that the Standing Committee was an official Parliamentary Committee charged with oversight of aboriginal affairs in Canada. He asked Mr. Malone what Mr. Malone was afraid of. Mr. Malone told Mr. O'Reilly that he had questions about Mr. Fulton's objectivity and didn't see any reason why there should be a report to the Standing Committee. He said that Mr. Fulton "looking over everybody's shoulder" might make the Band look good but would constrain negotiations and wouldn't necessarily lead to concessions and a negotiated settlement. If negotiations break-down after a very short period, Mr. Malone said, the Band will be criticizing both levels of Canadian Government anyway, and he didn't see the "usefulness" of a report to the Standing Committee or even why the Band would "need" Mr. Fulton to criticize the Government. He said that the Band had demonstrated ability to effectively criticize Canadian Government without any help from Mr. Fulton. He also expressed concern that we'd send a copy of any report filed with the Standing Committee to the UN Human Rights Committee. Mr. O'Reilly told Mr. Malone that there was no reason for concern if the Federal Government was sincere about negotiations. If negotiations weren't successful, Mr. O'Reilly said, a report to the Standing Committee would simply ensure that the public had a credible, independent assessment of the reasons for the break-down, rather than just conflicting versions from each side regarding what went wrong. Mr. Malone concluded the discussion by telling Mr. O'Reilly that he'd have to talk to his "principals" about the possible reinvolvement of Mr. Fulton. Given the Lubicon position on reinvolvement of Mr. Fulton, he said, he'd also have to obtain a decision from Mr. McKnight as to whether or not Mr. McKnight wished him to continue trying to get negotiations going. On December 9, 1987, Mr. Malone told reporters that the Federal and Provincial Governments were negotiating a settlement of Lubicon land rights without involving the Lubicon people. He said that he'd been negotiating with Provincial Lubicon negotiator John McCarthy for 5 weeks and that things were going "swimmingly". Mr. Malone said Mr. McKnight and Mr. Horsman would be meeting the following week in Ottawa and that he expected them to agree on the size of the Lubicon reserve. He said, "We'll announce what the agreement is before Christmas and then (the Lubicons) will have to decide what to do". Mr. Malone said that Treaty 8 gave the Minister the power to appoint someone to determine and establish the reserve. He said that Mr. McKnight had appointed him and that he therefore had the power. He said, "The Band has realized that I can make a deal with the Province and they (the Lubicons) are going to be left holding the bag". One reporter pointed out to Mr. Malone that we hadn't signed Treaty 8 and that Treaty 8 specifically said that reserve lands are determined and established only "after consulting with the Indians concerned..." Mr. Malone replied that he had "consulted" with the Lubicon Indians. He said "I talked with O'Reilly twice". Mr. Malone admitted that Mr. O'Reilly had refused to discuss reserve lands until the question of Mr. Fulton's reinvolvement had been settled. However, he said, he knew generally what lands were involved, since the Lubicon people had indicated publicly that they intended to retain the lands set aside in 1939, plus they'd talked generally to Mr. Fulton about what other lands would be involved. "That selection by the Band", he said, "will be taken into account in my negotiations with the Province of Alberta..." Regarding the complete lack of any negotiations with the Lubicon people, Mr. Malone said, "I talked to people involved who were prepared to talk to me". He claimed that he'd been forced to proceed in this way, because, he said, "the Lubicon people have built a wall around themselves". The wall which we'd built around ourselves, according to Mr. Malone, was our demand that Mr. Fulton be reinvolved as an independent mediator responsible to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs. By making that demand, Mr. Malone said, "They've put me in an impossible situation". "It's not Mr. Fulton being involved", Mr. Malone said, "it's Mr. Fulton reporting to the Standing Committee that's the killer". He claimed to have a legal opinion that a report to the Standing Committee would have the effect of waiving normal "without prejudice" protection. "Without prejudice" simply means that offers and proposals made in the context of negotiations can't be used to support allegations of liability in court. The argument that Mr. Fulton reporting to the Standing Committee would have the effect the effect of waiving normal "without prejudice" protection is of course nonsense. There's no reason why a report to the Standing Committee on "without prejudice" negotiations would in any way jeopardize the "without prejudice" nature of such negotiations. Rather what Mr. Malone was doing was responding to Mr. O'Reilly's challenge to publicly spell out some supposedly credible reason why Mr. Fulton shouldn't be involved as an independent mediator responsible to the Standing Committee. He chose a so-called "legal" reason both to bamboozle people not familiar with the legal concept involved, and because legal opinions on such matters can almost always be argued endlessly. On December 17, 1987, after due consideration and in light of the continuing debate over the Lubicon proposal to reinvolve Mr. Fulton as an independent mediator responsible to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, members of the Standing Committee, representing all three major political parties in Canada, voted unanimously to have Mr. Fulton "report to the Committee on matters affecting the land rights, negotiations, and the conduct of such negotiations regarding the Lubicon Lake Band". Mr. Malone responded to the Committee decision by telling reporters that "The Standing Committee decision on reinvolving Mr. Fulton makes no difference". He said that neither level of Canadian Government were willing to give Mr. Fulton public reporting power, because, he said, that would mean that anything the Governments said in negotiations could be used against them in court. He said that he intended to keep talking to the Province without the involvement of either Mr. Fulton or the Lubicon people and expected to be announcing a settlement offer shortly. If the Lubicon people refused to accept the offer, he said, he'd recommend that the whole matter be referred back to the Provincial Courts for a court imposed settlement under our old friend Judge Moore. Mr. McKnight publicly supported the position taken by Mr. Malone and refused to consider Mr. Fulton's reinvolvement, because, he said, "Mr. Fulton has already outlined his point of view in his Discussion Paper". "If the Lubicons do not wish to negotiate", Mr. McKnight said, "then I am sure that the only alternative is to have no settlement or to have a settlement imposed by the court". Asked by reporters for his view of Government rejection of the Standing Committee decision, Mr. Fulton denied that he lacked "objectivity" or had become "a Lubicon advocate or champion". He said that the only thing he was advocating was a fair and just settlement of an acknowledged long-term injustice. Mr. Fulton said he couldn't understand Mr. Malone's argument that his reporting to the Committee would waive normal "without prejudice" protection. As a former Federal Justice Minister, former BC Supreme Court Judge and prominent Canadian jurist Mr. Fulton said, "I don't think their grounds for rejection carry much weight". If there were any justification for the Government's position, he said, their concerns should have been alleviated by an offer he'd made to report to the Committee in-camera. However, he said, Mr. Malone had also rejected his offer to report to the Committee in-camera. If Mr. Malone thought he could announce a settlement of Lubicon land rights without talking to us and then see what we were going to do about it, we decided that we could announce a settlement of our aboriginal land rights without talking to the Government of Canada and then see what Mr. Malone was going to do about that. On December 21, 1987, therefore, we publicly announced the terms of our settlement offer, including no less reserve land than was retained by the aboriginal people in the surrounding area who signed treaty; sub-surface rights to reserve lands like all other reserves in Alberta; wildlife management and environmental protection rights over our entire remaining traditional area similar to those typically sought by aboriginal people negotiating settlement of aboriginal land rights; establishment of a trapper's support program for those Lubicon people wishing to continue trapping as a way of life but who are no longer able to make a living at it because of the effects of gas and oil development activity; the right of first refusal regarding jobs and contracts resulting from development of our traditional lands; housing and community facilities comparable to other northern communities; development of reserve lands for agricultural purposes; the right of self-government; on-going programs and services like other recognized Indians in Canada; compensation for the extensive destruction and exploitation of traditional Lubicon lands, and reimbursement for costs incurred in our struggle to achieve recognition and settlement of our aboriginal land rights. In January of 1988 we started receiving copies of a "background paper" on the Lubicon situation being distributed in Canada by the Canadian Government and abroad by Canadian Embassies. The document was clearly an effort to counter growing international concern over our plight, especially in light of the up-coming Calgary Winter Olympics and our Olympic boycott. It was also yet another dramatic illustration of how little respect the Canadian Government has for the truth. The so-called "background paper" said, for example, that "After the signing of Treaty 8 (in 1899), some Indian Bands chose to remain nomadic and delay their acceptance of reserve land to later dates, as in the case of the indigenous population in and around Lubicon Lake". In fact it's an indisputable fact of history that Treaty 8 Commissioners never entered our traditional territory, and that we never signed Treaty 8 nor any other treaty with the Canadian Government. It said "in 1940 the Government of Canada agreed in principle to the request for reserve lands in respect of the 127 Indians living at Lubicon Lake...(and that)...this territory was to have become a reserve in accordance with the provisions of Treaty 8...(but)...because the transfer of land (from Provincial to Federal jurisdiction) did not occur...the reserve was not established, and in the 1950's the land ceased to be set aside for the purposes of the Band". In fact the 127 people who met with Government officials in 1930-40 were known at the time to be only a delegation of the total Lubicon population, the transfer of land didn't occur because the Federal Government failed to conduct the required land survey, and the reason why reserve lands weren't recognized in the 1950's is that Federal Government officials simply decided that it would be "administratively inconvenient" for a reserve to be located in an area they considered to be too isolated and inaccessible. It said that charges of genocide by the World Council of Churches were investigated and debunked by Alberta Ombudsman Randall Ivany, whom it described as "an expert totally independent to the Provincial Government". In fact Dr. Ivany was appointed by the Alberta Provincial Legislature and operated under Provincial Government legislation with funds provided by the Provincial Government. He had no "expert" credentials in any field relevant to assessing aboriginal land rights or charges of genocide and before commencing his so-called "investigation" publicly described WCC charges of genocide as "ridiculous". Following his so-called inquiry Dr. Ivany admitted publicly that he didn't and couldn't investigate much of what had been charged by the WCC, because, he said, "it was beyond (his) jurisdiction". And by the time the Federal Government circulated it's so-called Lubicon "background paper" citing Dr. Ivany's report to counter WCC charges of genocide, the conclusions of Dr. Ivany's supposed investigation into WCC charges of genocide had long since been completely discredited. It said that negotiations between the Government of Canada and the Lubicon people were "interrupted" by the Lubicon people in 1986, that the Government of Canada made "repeated offers to return to the negotiating table", and that the "Canadian proposal conveyed to the Band at the time of the break-down in negotiations includes a variety of provisions of potential long-term benefit to the Band". In fact the Federal Government caused negotiations to break-down with a proposal which would have required us to agree to the disenfranchisement of more than half of our people before negotiations even began, and we responded to this so-called Federal "proposal" with a counter proposal with the Federal negotiator never even bothered to acknowledge. It said instead of agreeing to engage in productive negotiations, "The Band has devoted much of the past four years to a variety of national and international public relations activities designed to call attention to it's grievances, and...(to)...legal actions..." In fact we'd spent the previous 50 years seeking recognition of our aboriginal land rights through normal Canadian political channels, and only started seeking redress outside of normal Canadian legal and political channels after it became unavoidably clear that there was no redress possible through normal Canadian legal and political channels. In this regard it should be pointed out that representatives of 18 independent countries sitting on the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations, after studying our situation for three years, agreed that we had no hope of effective redress through normal Canadian legal and political channels. It said that we'd "called for a boycott of the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics and a related cultural exhibition at the Glenbow Museum...(even though)...there is no inherent linkage between the Band's grievances and these two events". In fact the people behind both the Calgary Winter Olympics and the Glenbow exhibit were demonstrably the same as those seeking to wipe us off the face of the earth so that they could steal our lands and resources. On January 18, 1988, and with the Calgary Winter Olympics only a month away, Federal negotiator Malone hand-delivered a letter from Mr. McKnight. The letter advised us that the Federal and Provincial Governments had failed to agree on a settlement of Lubicon land rights, and it threatened to call an inquiry under the Federal Inquiries Act to determine Lubicon membership unless we agreed by January 29th to provide the Provincial Government with Lubicon genealogical information, and also to allow full Provincial Government participation in Lubicon land negotiations. We responded to Mr. McKnight's January 18th letter on January 21st. We reminded him that negotiation of aboriginal land rights in Canada is a matter of exclusive Federal Government responsibility under the Canadian Constitution. We charged that his insistence on giving the Alberta Provincial Government an effective veto over settlement of our aboriginal land rights was a transparent attempt on his part to blur responsibility for lack of settlement. We pointed out that the membership question had already been reviewed in detail with Federal officials and submitted that an "inquiry" on the matter would only be a redundant waste of time designed to shift the focus of the debate from the relatively clear question of whether or not the Federal Government has exclusive constitutional responsibility for settling aboriginal land rights in Canada, to an endlessly complicated series of questions about hundreds of individual genealogies and all of the possible criteria which might conceivably be used to assess the significance of different historical facts and various genealogical relationships. We reiterated our proposal to commence bilateral negotiations between the Federal Government and the Lubicon people with Mr. Fulton as an independent mediator responsible to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs. And we warned that the only kind of settlement agreement which would be acceptable and workable would be one which took into account the way that aboriginal land rights have been traditionally negotiated in Canada. Mr. McKnight again rejected reinvolvement of Mr. Fulton, because, he said, "Fulton presented a Discussion Paper in which he expressed personal opinions and therefore cannot be considered independent". He addition, he said, he had legal advice that "the reporting mechanism cannot be done without prejudice to the court". Regarding next steps, Mr. McKnight said, "Canada has two choices". He said "We can either negotiate or we can settle through a third party". "If the Band agrees by January 29th to release Lubicon genealogical information to the Province and allows full Provincial Government participation in negotiations", he said, "we'll make a commitment not to settle out of court with Alberta". We told Mr. McKnight that our rapidly worsening situation on the ground left us with only two choices as well--serious negotiations or enforcement of our jurisdiction on the ground. We told him that our proposal to reinvolve Mr. Fulton was an effort on our part to insure negotiations were serious and not merely another Federal Government tactic to buy time and defuse criticism while our people went down the drain. If the Federal Government was serious about negotiating a settlement of Lubicon land rights, we told Mr. McKnight, then he should reinvolve Mr. Fulton as an independent mediator responsible to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs. If not, we told him, we would be forced to assert our jurisdiction on the ground and defend ourselves and our interests as best we could. On February 1st Mr. McKnight announced that his January 29th deadline had passed, that he'd given the Lubicon people "ample time to come to the table", and that he'd therefore "either call a Federal inquiry or take the Provincial Government to court in the near future to settle the claim". The purpose of taking the Provincial Government to court would of course be effectively the same as calling a Federal inquiry; namely, Lubicon genealogical information would be subpoenaed and thereby made officially available to the Alberta Provincial Government, shifting the focus of the public debate from the relatively simple question of who has exclusive constitutional responsibility for settling aboriginal land rights in Canada--which is clearly the Federal Government--to a hopelessly complex and deliberately unending debate over individual genealogies, historical facts and the criteria which might possibly be used in determining the significance of the genealogical data and historical facts. On February 4th Federal negotiator Malone announced that the Federal Government had formally requested the Provincial Government to transfer an unspecified amount of land for use as a Lubicon reserve. If the Provincial Government refused to transfer the requested land, Mr. Malone said, the Federal Government would take the Provincial Government to court to settle Lubicon land rights. Provincial Attorney General Horsman understandably reacted to the supposed threat of court action like Brer Rabbit being threatened with the briar patch. Mr. Horsman said, "...it may be the only way that (the Alberta Government) can get access to the genealogical records..." The objective for both levels of Canadian Government at this point was clear; namely, to get the Lubicon debate out of the political arena, where they were facing increasingly severe criticism for their handling of the Lubicon issue, and back into the courts--so that they could duck the issue politically, drag out the debate forever, and conduct the debate by rules over which they exercised greater control. Once the issue was before the courts, Federal and Provincial lawyers could endlessly debate history, genealogies and legal issues. Federal and Provincial politicians could refuse all comment, taking the position that they couldn't comment on a case before the courts. And critics of Federal and Provincial politicians could be chastised and even censored for commenting on a case before the courts.