(Continuation of Commission Hearings Day One)


Fred Lennarson:  I'd like to give you just some sense of this thing from a
little different perspective.  In the traditional Lubicon society the men
would support their families and an extended family through their skills as a
hunter and trapper.  With the traditional economy destroyed and dramatically
so these roles are in serious jeopardy.  The moose is the primary source of
food for the Lubicons.  In 1979 when the road came in there were 219 moose
killed for food.  By 1981 it had dropped to 110.  By 1982 it had dropped to
37.  By 1983 it had dropped to 19.  So people say to me, "What's it like?"  I
say, what would Edmonton look like 10 years after everybody had been forced
onto welfare and had to stand in line with their hand out in order to survive?

What would that do to relationships between men and women and parents and
children and the old people?  These people pride themselves on supporting a
family through their skills as a hunter, they pride themselves on going into
the bush with a couple of 30-30 shells and coming out and feeding several
families with it.  Now, they can't go into the bush and feed themselves.  One
Lubicon man, a hunter, forced onto welfare in order to feed himself and feed
his family, started drinking, wife left him, took welfare herself -- she had
the choice of either leaving or joining him in drinking and you know what
happens in a family like that -- so the man committed suicide with his hunting
rifle.  It's the first known suicide in Lubicon history.  During one 18 month
period there were something like 21 pregnancies, 18 children were still-born. 
The others were born prematurely with all kinds of problems.  There is not one
single Lubicon here who has not experienced unnatural death in his own family
through alcohol-related incidents -- a man freezing to death on his trapline,
a man killing himself with his hunting rifle, still-born children, kids
running head-on into an oil company truck.  They couldn't even identify the
bones.  They didn't even know which bones went with which child.  This has
been rightly described by the World Council of Churches as genocide.  I don't
know if that's what you were looking for, but that's the consequence on this
society of what's been done to them while the Alberta Government and the oil
companies and dominant Canadian society, all of the rest of us have benefited
to the tune of an estimated $8 billion in oil revenues, and now they're
proposing to go in and chop down something like 11,000 trees a day, dehydrate
them and send them to Japan as part of supposed diversification of the Alberta
economy. 

That's what we're talking about.  We're talking about a population of people
who a couple of years ago had a tuberculosis epidemic which affected 1/3 of
the population.  That's the kind of thing that you normally hear about in the
Third World or a developing country or in a different period of North American
history.  A public health nurse up there when this occurred said rightly that
tuberculosis is a disease which people get when they're immune system is down.

That's what happens when you've got people committing suicide, relatives of
Lubicon kids drinking photocopy fluid plainly marked poison, people drinking
too much and burning themselves alive in their homes, people having too much
to drink and going to their trapline and freezing to death on the way to their
trapline, premature born babies, still-born babies, and so on.  And there
should be no question about what's being done to these people as a result of
these actions by both levels of Canadian Government.

Don Aitken:  Thank you.  I think what I'm hearing basically is that there
isn't enough money to buy back all the damage that's been done.  I mean,
that's the bottom line.  You just cannot buy back what has been lost.

Bernard Ominayak:  Mr. Aitken, I don't think there's any amount of dollars
that would be able to put back in place what we lost by way of our traditional
way of life but rather we've concentrated on trying to put something together
that would enable us to build some kind of a future for our people, especially
for our younger generation.  One of the things that we're always very careful
about is to try and put something together that is going to hopefully benefit
the future generations of our people, because once we make an agreement, then
we pretty well have to live by that agreement.  Now whether the governments
can say the same, I don't know at this point.  But from our side, it's
something that we have to look at very, very closely.

For example, I'll give you another example.  Early on with the traplines a lot
of our trappers were out there trapping and they had their traps set out.  The
guys who were in the oil fields would have their cat and go out of their way
to destroy traps.  A few of the people had tried to get compensation for some
of the damage that was done to the traplines and so on.  But the whole issue
is not the $5.00 trap or anything.  We were losing a way of life that we were
accustomed to.  That's one of the things that was very important to us.  We
were trying to hang on and hang on and hang on, and not necessarily
concentrating on the $5.00 trap but rather to try and preserve what we had. 
That wasn't possible because they kept coming.  There was no response even to
the complaint, to a lot of the complaints that were put by the trappers.  On
one hand while the trappers were out there and we were trying to keep them
from shooting the guy running the cat, these were all things that we were
dealing with very early on, and at the same time to try and keep our people
from going to jail, because we kept telling them if you kill this guy they'll
just put more in.  It's not these guys.  They're only out there doing a job
and there're many of them.  So these were the problems that we've gone
through.  I hope a lot of the people end up understanding that we've been
forced into a lot of situations.  We've fought a battle and I don't think we
were expected to be able to be here today.  Or even this year.  But we hope
that we're going to be able to withstand what may come in the future as long
as we don't have a settlement.  But that's anybody's guess as to how long
that's going to be possible, or if it's going to be possible.  As I stated in
my opening remarks, I don't think there is a need for this kind of action to
be taking place and be practised by governments or anybody interested in any
kind of natural resource.  I think we've got to deal with the people as
people, regardless of their color.  I think there needs to be a greater
understanding by the general public of Alberta and within Canada and beyond
that we can't allow these kinds of practices to be practised by governments of
the day any longer.

Jacques Johnson:  Thank you Bernard.  We've been sitting almost an hour and a
half.  I propose that we take a 15 minute break.  There's coffee up there for
all of you.

We will continue for the next hour or so.  By 4:30 we will be looking at our
watch seriously.  We would like to resume tomorrow morning around 9:30.  Let's
say 9:30.  If we can count on the Lubicons to be back we'd appreciate that
very much. 

In continuing this afternoon I will ask the other members of the panel in turn
to see if they have any questions they would like to raise.

Jennifer Klimek:  Like the other Commissioners I'd like to welcome you all
here today and to thank you for coming.  My question is with respect to the
proposal.  I've had an opportunity to review it and it certainly seems very
clear and well organized.  What I'd like to know is a little bit of the
background that went into it.  How did you come up with these numbers, not
specifically, but some of the methodology about how you came up with the
figures and what needed to be there?

Bernard Ominayak:  I guess a few years ago, it's a continuing process that we
got ourselves into, whereby we actually went to people who are in the
business.  For example, in the area of housing, we've gone to people in Peace
River, different lumber suppliers, given them an idea of the kind and type of
house and what it would cost to build that kind of a house.  So in compiling
all this information we've gone out to people who are in the business.  For
example, the cow/calf operation, we've gone to a lot of different farms where
they've been in the cow/calf operation...and what it costs, like how much
grain for x number of head.  We've gone through this process.  These people
have given us figures as to what it would cost to run those kinds of
businesses on a yearly basis.  So the simple answer would be we've gone
directly to people who are directly involved in the different areas.  For
example, in road construction, we've gone to a number of different people.  I
think one of your Commissioners would be better able to answer that kind of a
question because he's been in the business and knows the area.  Because a lot
of these areas in northern Alberta are somewhat different than say southern
Alberta where you don't have as much muskeg and swamps and so on and the water
table may not be as high.  In northern Alberta these factors come into play. 
The other thing too that I think's important to know is that material costs
are somewhat higher in the town of Peace River than in the City of Edmonton or
Calgary.  So all these factors are included in these kinds of prices that we
used in putting together our package.  For example, the school too.  We had
people involved with that when we first started talking.  We had the local
people say this is the kind of school we'd like to have in place taking into
account the vocational training center and also the school itself and trying
to put an overall education facility in place that would hopefully benefit
more than just the kids, but also the people that need up-grading to a certain
degree with the different shops, and also putting in place the kinds of goals
that the younger children may work towards.  For example, as I pointed out
earlier, we've talked about a vet and we've also talked about game-ranching. 
These then become reality once you can put these things together to a stage
where they're actually working.  So I guess a lot of this stuff is
intertwined.  That's something we've been accustomed to in the past where we
were dependent on a certain area and we were confined to that area because
anytime we got outside of that, we had the Beaver and Slavey on the north and
west and other Crees to the north, east and south of us.  So we always
respected their territory and they respected ours and that's how we've
operated all these years until the oil development moved in and then they
wanted to take everything.

Fred Lennarson:  Maybe just one little conceptual handle on this thing.  When
the traditional economy was being destroyed, the Lubicon people sat down as a
group and tried to figure out what they could do about this situation. 
Everything in this proposal flows from the experiences that they had.  Bernard
said that they depend upon moose for food.  The moose are gone.  What can they
do?  There used to be buffalo in the area.  The old people had found old
buffalo skulls.  Maybe they can raise buffalo.  Another key part of this whole
thing is the Lubicon people, culturally and in terms of their religion, see
the land as something that you support and take care and then it supports and
takes care of you.  The oil companies, on the other hand, see the land as
something you exploit and move on.  So there's been the tension all along. 
The Lubicon people as a goal really are trying to figure out a way they can
survive on domestic plants and animals in a smaller area because they no
longer have the option of wild plants and animals in a big area.  Then as
Bernard said we went to people in relevant businesses and we got actual
quotes.  These are not guesstimates.  These are all based on actual quotes
from people in the business, the people who run the veterinary clinic in Peace
River advised the Lubicons on how to set it up.  The farming equipment prices
are all quotes from people -- and the best quotes we could find.  When we
talked to the government in December of '88 about these numbers, in instance
after instance they thought the Lubicon numbers were too low.  And the reason
they thought the Lubicon numbers were too low was because we aggressively
pursued the lowest possible numbers for all of the things the Lubicons wanted
to include in their proposal.

Jennifer Klimek:  I have one other question out of that.  When you say the
government has thought the numbers were too low, is it that there's no
disagreement as to the numbers but just a disagreement as to whether or not
you should get that particular item?  Is that where the disagreement is?

Fred Lennarson:  That was certainly the situation in December of '88.  Bob
Sachs here might want to talk about it now, but when we were meeting there was
initially some disagreement on some kinds of numbers.  In other words they
said "We don't think you need two tractors.  Why can't you use the same
tractor to do both of these different things?"  We worked and worked on that
trimming out any possible fat in the proposals.  But at the end of that
process there was no longer any disagreement over the numbers.  The
disagreement was over on whether the items should be included at all.

Jennifer Klimek:  And then one final question.  I notice this is a 1990
document.  Are you going to be factoring in inflation or is this document
still the one that's on the table from your point of view.

Fred Lennarson:  Those are the actual quotes in 1988 dollars.  And as you'll
see, although it's a 1990 document, all of the things say 1988 numbers.  And
the reason for that is that those are actual quotes.  To up-date them we'd
have to go back to all of the different vendors again and get up-dated quotes.

We haven't been able to do that so we just rely upon the quotes in 1988
dollars.

Menno Wiebe:  I have one question I'd like to tag maybe for tomorrow to answer
and address especially to the Elders, if they'd willing to speak to this
tomorrow.  I think we'd be interested in hearing something about the spiritual
connection you have to the Lubicon area.  If you could give us some insights
on that that would be helpful to us.  So we can save that one until tomorrow.

Than I have a few factual questions.  Bernard, I've heard you talk about a
settlement that would provide a long-range economic base.  You are not talking
only about cash settlement but that which would have long-range sustainability
and we've read your proposal with the plans in it.  Could you say just a
little bit more about how you see the transition being made?  If the hunting
tradition is really going because of depletion of game and maybe also
resistance of the younger ones to go hunting -- unless we'd like to be
corrected on that...(change tapes)...

Bernard Ominayak:  ...and hopefully that we're able to get the Elders to make
a few comments or if there're any questions that may arise or with comments in
general.  In so far as looking at the long-range plans I guess we've looked at
a number of ways to try and deal with these situations.  For example, we've
got people who are 40 years old and older.  A lot of them are not going to
want to get into anything but hunting and trapping.  We've gone back to them
and we've said what would you like to do.  They said we want to do what we've
been doing.  So keeping that in mind, we've tried to look at it from different
angles.  

One of the things that we've done is tried to deal with the Alberta Government
on that particular topic, where we started negotiating with them on a
wildlife/management committee that would look at and deal with the whole
traditional territory where our traplines are and also where we do a lot of
the hunting.  For example, when an oil development was going to come into this
area they would have to go to this committee for their license and so on. 
Depending on which area they wanted to work in they'd have to get the
authorization.  One of the things that we pushed very heavily on was to get
equal representation and equal say on this committee by our people.  They were
talking about involving Forestry and they were talking about involving Fish
and Wildlife.  The thing on that was that if there was an oil company coming
in and wanting to do a particular job within our traditional area, they would
go through this committee.  If they got their okay then one of the things that
we wanted to put in there, too, was to have an equal opportunity for the kinds
of work that may be coming in through this particular oil company -- not any
kind of preferential treatment but rather an equal opportunity if we were able
to do the job that needed to be done, to have an equal opportunity to be able
to bid for the work.  The important thing in this set-up was what we were
looking at was because of the depletion of the game, for example moose, we
talked about how best do we deal with the problem.  We tried in the past where
we said, let's not hunt this fall or this winter to try and bring back some of
the moose.  But the minute we did that we saw everybody else coming in and
hunting, so it didn't do any good to try and hold off.  We had to compete with
these guys in order to have the moose that came into the area.  But with this
wildlife management committee, we figured if the moose were really down -- and
they are down -- so maybe it would be good if we didn't hunt for 1 year or 2
years to try and bring back some of the moose into the area.  In the fall
there's a tendency of moose moving around a lot.  They come out of the
different areas into our area when they're mating.  So maybe, we thought, if
hunting was prevented for a year that some of these animals would stay,
depending on how much activity and so on was taking place in the given areas. 
Or we look at certain areas and stop hunting in those areas, depending on what
the situation was.  But these are the kind of ideas that we were talking
about.

Same thing with trapping.  For example, they reduced our trappers to one lynx
and one fisher one winter.  We couldn't kill two lynx, we couldn't kill more
than one fisher.  Our trappers were out there and they had their traps out. 
One day maybe they caught two lynx.  What did they do with the other one? 
Fish and Wildlife wanted to take it and sell it.  So we were caught in a
situation where, while we were trying to look at conservation, everything
seemed to be against us.  So we said, okay, if that's the case, if the lynx
are depleting and they wanted to put a control on that, then let's not trap. 
But then when we go in and we want to renew our trapline they say, "Well you
guys didn't do anything, therefore you shouldn't be having a trapline."  They
said "there's a lot of people on this waiting list that are wanting traplines
within this area."  So we're caught in this situation where we're damned if we
do and damned if we don't.

These are the kinds of things that are important to us because of the
particular way of life our people and that fact that they would like to try
and preserve that as long as possible.

So that is one of the ideas that we've looked at.  The other one is game-
ranching, as Fred pointed out, there's been buffalo in the past in that area
and we've got a few buffalo at this point.  There're very few, but what we
wanted to do was look at how they adapted to our area and what it would take
to raise them.  Do you have to feed them year-round?  Do you have to feed them
grain?  How are they going to adapt?  They've done very well.  They're not
hard to keep and you only feed them when the snow is deep.  They're strong and
they can do well on their own.

Menno Wiebe:  Just a few additional questions.  We're talking about the
immediate reserve area...and beyond that the larger hunting area.  How much
development, either in terms of oil extraction or timber harvesting...(has
occurred in)...the proposed land areas in question -- have calculations been
made about the amount of monies extracted from them.  I want to get to the
point of the question.  What contributions have been made to community
building by either the oil companies or Daishowa?

Bernard Ominayak:  With the billions of dollars that have been extracted by
way of natural resources off our traditional territory, there has not been a
red cent that has been coming back to the community other than welfare from
the federal government.  There're been a lot of claims made by governments
that they can't be handing out tax dollars to Native people like the Lubicons
all the time.  I don't think we're talking about any tax payers' dollars when
we're talking about a settlement for the Lubicon people, considering the
amount of money that's been extracted through the various oil development and
also the logging companies up to this point.  

You mentioned the two areas or the three areas.  In so far as the 91 square
miles right around Lubicon Lake itself -- we went out of our way not to
include the existing pump jacks that are to the south and to the north and to
the east of Lubicon Lake itself where we selected the 91 sq. miles.  That also
holds true for the 2 sq. miles at Haig Lake and also the 2 sq. miles at Bison
Lake.  There are no producing wells or any pump jacks within those lands that
were set aside in the Grimshaw Agreement.  On the 16 sq. miles where we just
hold the surface rights, before any work can take place by the government we
would have to have an equal say or we'd have to authorize any development that
may transpire within those 16 sq. miles.

Menno Wiebe:  Your selection of that larger plot of land -- did you
intentionally try to avoid lands on which there were pump jacks?

Bernard Ominayak:  That is correct.  That's what I said.  We were having
enough problems trying to get lands and we always try to consider other
peoples' interests in this fight.  Hard as it is, we still try to do that. 
That's one of the reasons why we went the way we did.  Also, within the 91
square miles, we've kept the oil development out of there for the last 4 or 5
years.  We've told all the oil companies that nobody is going to do any kind
of exploratory work or any drilling of any kind within the 95 square miles. 
We did catch one seismic company that snuck in through the back door a couple
of winters ago.  And we had to assist them in getting out of there.  But we
haven't had too much problem keeping them out.  There's been interest
indicated by a number of different oil companies wanting to explore within
those lands, but at this point we don't know if there's anything in there, or
if there's nothing.

Menno Wiebe:  Would you confirm for me here -- the larger areas designated for
hunting outside of the 95 square miles, however, has a lot of oil and timber
development in it?

Bernard Ominayak:  That is correct.

Fred Lennarson:  I'd like to elaborate just a little bit on Bernard's remarks
about the discussions with the province.  We can provide materials on that as
well which I don't believe you have.  The Lubicon position historically has
been that they wanted to retain wildlife management and environmental
protection rights over the bigger area.  At Grimshaw Premier Getty agreed to
talk about that.  In subsequent negotiations with the province, there was an
agreement in principle -- it was part of the bigger deal which has never been
done -- but there was agreement in principle with the province that the entire
Lubicon territory would be established as a special wildlife zone, and there
would be, as Bernard said, there would be a committee of people that would be
in the majority Aboriginal people from the area who would constitute this
committee.  They would, among other things, establish the number of big game
that could be taken, the number of big game that would be required by the
Aboriginal people of the area for subsistence, and the number that could be
taken in total.  If 500 could be taken and the Aboriginal people needed 300 of
the 500 that could be taken, then only 200 tags could be issued to people from
the outside area.  There is a provincial computerized system for protecting
particularly sensitive areas.  If, for example, there's a breeding ground or a
burial ground or the like you put that in the computer system and then
whenever there's an application for somebody to do development work, they are
advised that they cannot drill a well in the middle of a burial ground or an
animal breeding ground or something.  Then there are a series of other powers
that this committee would hold with regard to the establishment of forestry
practices in the area and other things.  But the major powers have to do with
hunting and management of traplines.

There's one other element which Bernard may want to speak to as well, and that
is called a Trappers' Support Program.  The model comes out of Quebec with the
James Bay Cree.  Especially for the older people who find their identity and
feelings of self-worth going to a trapline -- these guys get up and go to the
trapline every day because that's what a responsible human being does, whether
you catch anything or not...The problem is that these people can no longer
support themselves off the land but neither can they support themselves in the
bush on welfare with store-bought groceries.  So the Lubicon people have put
forward a proposal, and this is included in the package in the Lubicon Draft
Settlement Agreement, called the Trapper' Support Program.  The idea of the
Trappers' Support Program is that the trappers would receive compensation for
the difference between what they used to be able to make in the bush and what
they can now make, related to the number of days that they actually put in
trapping...So it would enable a guy to trap even though he could not
technically be self-supporting by only trapping.

Menno Wiebe:  Just for the record here, Bernard, when you proposed or were
talking about a wildlife management committee or commission, you were talking
about equal and full participation?  I'm drawing this to our attention because
many of the land claim agreements have the Native people as advisory to the
committee.  We just want to make sure that we're hearing you on that?

Bernard Ominayak:  That is correct Menno.  To agree to play an advisory role
in any kind of committee we've see time after time doesn't work.  It's just a
complete waste of time on anybody's part, especially the Aboriginal people. 
So we either have to have an equal say as to what takes place within our
traditional territory or we have to do something else.

Sandy Day:  I too say welcome.  As a group our goal is to get negotiations
going again between you and the government.  With that in mind, I ask, do you
Bernard have a vision on how to open negotiations or a different tactic or way
to go about trying to reach some settlement?

Bernard Ominayak:  We have numerous ways or a lot of ideas that would probably
work if the will was there on the part of the government.  But as long as it's
not there then I don't see what is going to work.  Here, with this
Commission...I would hope that they take the opportunity to participate and
hopefully this may lead to a more substantive discussion than what we've had
in the past years.  I think that as more people become aware and more people
become involved in this process I would hope that would enhance the will of
the governments that hasn't been there for a number of years.  But as I
pointed out to the people, the media and that, I think it would be in the best
interests of all that this matter be resolved -- meaning the oil development,
the logging companies and everybody else that's involved in stealing our
resources.  What is being done up to this point and is still going on can not
go on forever.  That is something that has to be understood by a lot of
people...I would hope that they take every advantage of getting the assistance
of the Commission here in arriving at a fair and just settlement for the
Lubicon people.

John MacMillan:  Bernard, I see in the red book there's a press release
stating that maybe the Lubicons are asking too much or are greedy.  But it
would have been very easy for you to outline your reservation and absorb those
oil wells, wouldn't it have been?  It was intentionally done that you did not
take them into your reservation, is this right?

Bernard Ominayak:  Well, John, yes, that's what I said just a little earlier
to Menno.  We went out of our way not to include existing producing wells
within those lands that were set aside in the Grimshaw Agreement.  I think
more than that, with all the development that has taken place within our whole
traditional area, as long as we don't have an agreement with both levels of
government then those lands and whatever resources those lands contain are
rightfully ours until we get an agreement in place.  Within those lands
they've extracted billions of dollars and billions of dollars.  We're not
talking about tax payers' dollars when we're talking about a settlement for
the Lubicon people.  If we were looking at the kinds of money that was hauled
out of there, you know, you take $170 million versus I don't know how many
billions of dollars, it's peanuts.  I mean, this is a real good deal on the
parts of the governments if they were prepared to look at an agreement.  But
no, it seems to be greed as one of the major players in this war where they
are stalling and stalling and stalling and in the meantime they're stealing
and stealing.  That's the game they're playing.  I know they're putting us
under all kinds of pressure because the longer they prevent us from getting an
agreement, the more resources they steal.  Also at the same time, they've put
all kinds of obstacles all around us.  For example, the Woodland Cree, right
now they're in the process of creating another Band to the east of us.  That's
to try and divide and conquer the Lubicon people and they say, "the more
Lubicons we steal from the Lubicon Nation, then the bigger the problem it is
for the Lubicon people."  So they'd rather not deal with us, but at the same
time, we're there and we've been able to stand up to this point.

Fred Lennarson:  I'd just like to make one small point of clarification.  When
Bernard met with Premier Getty in October of 1988 and made this deal on the 79
sq. miles and the 16 sq. miles, Bernard took the position that there were no
oil wells within that area.  That was what was believed at the time. 
Afterwards it was realized that there were a couple of oil wells just inside
the line around the periphery and so what the Lubicon people did was agree
that the places where these oil wells were located would be included in part
of the 16 sq. miles where the Lubicons do not have sub-surface rights and that
they would give the province access to those particular oil wells.  So what
Bernard says when he says there're no oil wells within that area is true in
this sense.  The Lubicons took that position in the beginning and when a
couple of wells were located just inside the boundary, the agreement was then
made that the sub-surface rights belonging to those wells would remain with
the province...The Lubicons are not benefitting from any of these wells.

John MacMillan:  Another thing I'd like the Commission to hear is the numbers
of the Woodland Cree.  There were probably 780 members of the Woodland Cree
and today about, what, 250 living in Cadotte?  Could you go through that bit,
Bernard?  What I'm trying to get at here is that a lot of those members aren't
even from the area.  Is that right or is that wrong?

Bernard Ominayak:  Well, John, I guess depending on which report you want to
follow.  As far as we know the membership of the Woodland Cree at this point
is 700+.  It is true that maybe there's 200, maybe 300 people living at the
community of Cadotte Lake.  But what they had done in the process of trying to
build up their membership, they went out of their way to recruit members from
all the different areas.  They went all the way to B.C., Peace River,
Grimshaw, all those little towns, High Prairie, Slave Lake, Edmonton here,
Wabasca, Bigstone -- all these different areas in trying to build this so-
called Woodland Band.  A lot of them were getting in under C-31.  One of the
things that the federal government had done was set up a special committee to
deal with C-31 registration of the Woodland Cree in Ottawa.  They had this
committee set up and they went around taking applications from many of the
Native people in the surrounding area under this new bill, Bill C-31.  Then
they would put them on the Lubicon membership list and then the minute they
got them on, they'd transfer them to Woodland.  This was all being done in
Ottawa.  So a lot of the people weren't even aware as to what was happening. 
In the meantime, though, the Chief and Council of the Woodland, especially the
Chief, thought that if they brought up their membership that meant more land. 
But what the government was doing was they only had a few people that they
were giving land for, because their position has been -- and I'm not sure if
it's still the position to this day -- was no land under C-31.  So while these
guys were jacking up their membership, the land that they were each getting
was getting smaller because all these people are getting on their list.  So
anyway, that's about all I know.  I don't really pay too much attention as to
what kind of an agreement they make or to what they're doing in so far as the
Woodland is concerned, because it's really a pitiful situation where the
government should be bloody ashamed of themselves for the kind of shafting
they've done to these Native people.  I'm not questioning or arguing the point
whether the people of the Woodland have any rights.  Whatever rights they may
have had are all gone and what I see is just a disgraceful agreement and the
government...should be ashamed for what they've done to those people.

John MacMillan:  But aren't you going to have to let some of those people back
into your reservation if there is a broken family situation?

Bernard Ominayak:  Well John, in reality, whoever was included or whoever
signed the kind of release that the Woodland people signed in order to get the
agreement that they got is not going to be a member that's going to be
beneficial to the Lubicon people by any means at this point.  That is
reality...Most of them are still living in our community even up to this
point.  We, from the community, have tried to avoid any kind of tension with
those people, with the understanding that they made a choice on their own to
go some place else.  But at the same time, they're coming back, coming back
and asking if they can rejoin the Lubicon people.  So this is a continuing
thing and it's a problem that's going to have to be dealt with internally. 
But it's a problem that we see and it's there and it's a reality.  How best we
deal with it, I guess, is a question that is before ourselves as a Lubicon
Nation.  But as you brought it out, in trying to get an agreement the
government bought them.  They've got absolutely no right at all from the
government's point of view at this point.  But having said that, that's not a
factor on our part.  It's something that we will have to consider at some
point as we face it...(change tapes)...

John MacMillan:  ...family member, $1,000 to sign to the Lubicon Band?  Or to
the Woodland Cree?

Bernard Ominayak:  To the Woodland Cree.  Certainly not to the Lubicons.  I
think they'd rather hang me than give me a thousand dollars at this point. 
There's been articles written on that too, also, a lot of the people have come
to us a month later with the problems that they were having.  First they were
paying them $1,000 per family member if the vote turned right and then they
paid them each $50 to vote.  If there was a family of five, they got $5,000. 
But later on, after everything had gone through and the referendum was in
favor of signing the agreement, then they turned around and deducted these
payments from peoples' welfare allowance.  So they were in a big mess there
for quite a while.  A lot of them came crying to us trying to get welfare
until their time was made up.  But there's been no rules, or there's been no
right or wrong in a lot of this stuff.  For example, the Indian Affairs
Minister just on his own created this Band under Section 17 of the Indian Act.

It's something that we may have been more accustomed to a hundred years ago,
but at this point in time, well, it still happens.

Fred Lennarson:  If I may, I'd like to provide the Commission with just a
little bit of history on the creation of this thing.  I don't know if
everybody here knows the history of it.  There is a man by the name of Henry
Laboucan who was born in a neighboring community, or his father was from a
neighboring community.  His father's name was Henry McGillivray and his mother
was a Lubicon.  His mother left his father and moved in with a Lubicon man for
a couple of years and then left the Lubicon man and moved to a place called
Grouard.  They moved out of the Lubicon area in '49 and have lived in Grouard
ever since.  In the early 70s Henry Laboucan got the old Lubicon man, with
whom his mother had lived for a couple of years, to sign an affidavit saying
he was Henry's father.  It wasn't technically true but as a cultural
phenomena, in these communities the people that raise you are called mother
and father.  So the old man said sure "I'll sign an affidavit saying I'm your
father" and Henry used this to get on the status list of Lubicon Indians.  But
he'd moved out of the area to Grouard.  So after the Grimshaw Agreement and it
looked like there was going to be a settlement of Lubicon land rights,  Henry
Laboucan contacted a provincial MLA by the name of Larry Shaben and said he
wanted to pursue something called land in severalty.  Land in severalty is a
provision of Treaty 8 which provides land of 160 acres per person for
everybody who wants to live apart from everybody else.  Henry didn't want to
go back and live in Lubicon territory.  He hadn't been there since 1949.  He'd
grown up in Grouard and he wanted reserve land there.  Larry Shaben referred
this request for land in severalty to the provincial negotiating team and they
gave it to the feds and the feds brought it to the negotiating table in
December of 1988.  What they said to us is, "We have an inquiry here about
land in severalty from a guy named Henry Laboucan and our first point is that
we don't deal with individuals.  We have to negotiate aboriginal land rights
with the aboriginal society, not with individuals.  So we're not going to talk
to him.  And we want to say to you on the Lubicon negotiating team, if you
want to negotiate land in severalty we want to tell you right now that there's
never going to be any land in severalty settlements with the Lubicon people or
anybody else."  Justice Department lawyer Ivan Whitehall said, "If you pursue
it we guarantee you we'll tie you up in court forever."  I just make this
point.  He didn't say, "We'll refer it to the courts for determination."  He
said, "We'll use the rules of the court to prevent you from ever being able to
take advantage of this particular clause of the treaty."

At any rate the Lubicon negotiating team said land in severalty is not on our
agenda.  The Lubicon people didn't tell us to negotiate any land in severalty.

Henry is operating on his own and as far as we're concerned he's got to
straighten this out with the Lubicons.  If the Lubicon people tell us to
negotiate land in severalty, that's what we'll do.  But unless or until that
happens we won't do it.

The federal government then broke down negotiations the following January with
the so-called "take-it-or-leave-it" offer, copies of which you have.  That was
on January 24th as I recall. The first part of February -- and I'd have to
check the date but it was something like February 10th -- they made
arrangements to go and meet with Henry Laboucan up in High Prairie.  We have
information about what happened at the meeting.  What they said to Henry at
that meeting was, "We can't negotiate a separate deal with you independent of
the Lubicons, but if you can identify other Lubicons who agree with you, we'll
help get them on the list, overthrow the existing Lubicon leadership in the
election scheduled for that fall, and then we'll make a deal and give you your
land in severalty."  And it was at that point that the government agents,
working with some of the aboriginal people in the area, starting beating the
bushes in High Prairie, Peace River and other places, trying to find
aboriginal people to go on this list.  These aboriginal people, many of whom
had been taken off the membership lists of half-a-dozen Bands in the
surrounding area, went along to try and get their names back on the status
lists.  The government was trying to use them to overthrow the existing
Lubicon leadership.  They were trying to use the federal agents to get back on
the status list.  So they were trying to use each other.  

The government hired a Calgary lawyer by the name of Bob Sachs -- not Bob
Sachs, Bob Young.  I'm sorry.  They flew Bob Young from Calgary up to Edmonton
and introduced him to these people in the Edmonton office of Indian Affairs. 
They flew these dissidents down from High Prairie on a chartered plane using
our tax money and introduced them to their new lawyer.  Bob Young next went to
a cocktail party in Calgary and mentioned that he'd been hired to represent
Lubicon dissidents.  There was somebody from the Calgary Herald at the party. 
The story broke and then the government started claiming there were 200
Lubicon dissidents, 300 Lubicon dissidents, 400 Lubicon dissidents, more
Lubicon dissidents than there were Lubicon people.

So the Lubicon leadership, facing the situation where their mandate was being
challenged, who they represented was being challenged, called an early
election and that election was uncontested and Lubicon leadership was re-
elected unanimously.  Now what happened is these so-called dissidents by
definition had no political base in Lubicon territory.  They were largely from
these surrounding communities.  

The following week the government announced that they were going to set up the
Woodland Cree Band, which up to that point didn't exist.  There's no historic
Woodland Cree community.  The Woodland Cree existed only in motel rooms in
places like Peace River in meetings called by agents of the federal
government, trying to set this thing up.  

They then created the Woodland Cree under a section of the Indian Act to which
Bernard referred which I call to the Commission's attention.  I have it before
me.  It's Section 17 and it reads as follows:

    "The Minister may, whenever he considers it desirable, constitute new
    bands and establish band lists with respect thereto from existing bands or
    from the Indian Register if requested to do so by an unspecified number of
    persons proposing to form the new band."

That means if you've got a membership of 500 people they can go in and find 5
people and try to cook up a little deal with them.  And if they can make that
deal, and solicit a request which is what happened in this case, they've met
their first requirement.

Two:

    "Where pursuant to Subsection 1" -- which I just read -- "a new Band has
    been established from an existing band or any part thereof, such portion
    of the reserve lands and funds of the existing band as the Minister in his
    sole discretion determines" -- he can just sit at his desk and sign a
    letter and decide this -- "shall be held for the use and benefit of the
    new band."

The third section reads:

    "No protest may be made in respect to the deletion from or the addition to
    a band list consequence on the exercise by the Minister of any of his
    powers under subsection 1."

We need to think about the consequences of this.  This would be like if Prime
Minister Mulroney didn't like Don Getty so he sent somebody to Edmonton and
picked up a few people on the streets of Edmonton and dealt with them instead
of duly elected provincial leaders.  That's the kind of anti-democratic power
this Indian Act gives to the federal minister and this is how he's used it in
this situation to create this band which has no history.  There is no Woodland
Cree community.  It didn't exist until these disparate individuals were pulled
together in the fashion I've indicated.  And the government now, Mr. Siddon
last November 1st and at other points as well, says the Lubicon people no
longer enjoy aboriginal land rights to their traditional territory because
other people -- namely the Woodland Cree -- who in his words have an equal
right to the area have ceded the aboriginal land rights to that area.

You'll hear more about that.  I just thought that background material might be
helpful to the people who don't know it.

Jacques Johnson:  So I guess that takes care of the Lubicon claim to
aboriginal rights, right?

Fred Lennarson:  It depends on who you talk to.

Jacques Johnson:  I have a question maybe to Mr. Sachs.  In regards to the on-
going negotiations, I read in a newspaper clipping recently in regards to this
Commission a voice coming from the Indian Affairs department says that they
have no comments because of the sensitive nature of the on-going negotiations
between the Lubicons and the feds.  I wonder if you would have any comment
about that Mr. Sachs?

Bob Sachs:  Heretofore, the negotiations have been sort of one-sided in
nature.  What has occurred is back in November of last year, Bernard spoke
with Siddon.  Bernard presented Siddon with the Lubicon proposal and asked for
his response to that proposal.  There has still not been a response to that
proposal.  In essence what has transpired over the last, well, since February,
is a series of meetings in which their, according to their view of things, new
and improved offer has been placed on the table.  I believe you have that
before you.  The essence of the difficulty is much what Jennifer was getting
at earlier, and that is -- and probably Regena and Don who deal constantly
with government can understand this way of thinking -- that there is nothing
in the Lubicon proposal which they will agree to which does not fit into an
existing program.  In other words, if one wants -- and we'll just take an
example -- an old folks' home for lack of a better term.  There is no existing
federal program to build an old folks' home so you don't get it.  It is
program-specific and when they talk about their offer, it is always in terms
of dollars.  In other words, their very generous offer is always in so many
dollars.  Of course, when you analyze their offer, a lot of those very
generous dollars are not in fact a solid proposal.  In other words, it's what
Fred was talking about.  "Well, you may qualify for this program which can
yield you up to x number of dollars.  You may be able to do this.  You may be
able to do that." 

So the difficulty that we see at the present time is a difficulty that we've
been encountering now for 3 1/2 years.  Their response is much the same as it
was to the negotiations which took place in 1988-89.  And that is as I
described it.

Those items where there is a commonality to them -- a school, a house, a road,
those sorts of things -- they have again, if you know anything about
government, some very complicated formulas as to the amounts that are placed
in their offer.  So many people yield you so many houses.  So many people
produces so many children which produces a school of this size.  That is all
sort of population driven or formula driven and does not really speak to the
fundamental issues that weigh in this particular situation.  The Lubicon
situation is a very particular situation.  And for god knows how many years
they've been trying to convince the federal government that this sort of
thinking of compartmentalizing various pieces to the puzzle is just not the
way to deal with this issue.  

And so in essence nothing much different in terms of the way of looking at
this problem has changed in the federal government in the 3 1/2 years since
negotiations originally commenced.

Jacques Johnson:  Thank you Mr. Sachs.  That's very helpful.  So in a sense
you're saying that there has been no progress in negotiations, really no
movement worth speaking of?

Bob Sachs:  Numbers have sort of been gerrymandered around but in essence from
a format point of view -- it's exactly the same format.  In other words, if
schools fit into a program we have then yes you get a school.  If an old
folks' home doesn't fit into a program, sorry then there's no money for that. 
On the socio-economic side, from a business point of view, again, if you
qualify for a program.  That's the sort of thinking that has gone on and
nothing much has changed in that type of thinking.

Jacques Johnson:  I have one question for Chief Bernard here.  It is very
simple.  Regarding your membership, I know that there seems to be something
very sacred about membership lists.  It is very difficult to get the lists.  I
don't know if there has been a public list of the Woodland Cree people.  Would
it be possible for the Lubicons to give this Commission a band list, if that's
what you call it?

Bernard Ominayak:  I guess, just looking back at the experience we had with
providing information and stuff for the governments to work off is one of the
questions that we'd have to ask ourselves.  But I certainly will bring that up
before the Council and the people and depending upon what they say in
providing that particular information, we've tried to provide whatever
information we had to the Commission, so I would hope that there is a
possibility that that may be possible.  But at this point I can not answer
your question as to whether I can or not.

The other thing I would just like to maybe add to Bob's comments to you in so
far as the supposed negotiations at this point in time.  Basically what is
happening -- and I think the Commission has been provided with two books that
are supposedly proposals from the federal government.  Basically what you're
seeing is the $45 million "take-it-or-leave-it" offer that was there.  They're
trying to work around it, but basically from our point of view that's what it
is.  Whether we can go on beyond that, I really don't know.  We hope that
there's a possibility that they will get involved in this and also to utilize
the help that may be provided, depending on what the outcome of this
particular Commission does.  So with that I guess that's the only comment I've
got in that regard.  Fred here is jumping up and down.

Fred Lennarson:  I'd like to just make a couple of additions to that.  We've
looked at these most recent offers in terms of the impact of inflation --
because these are in 1992 dollars whereas the "take-it-or-leave-it" offer was
in 1988 dollars -- and while some of the numbers have increased slightly, some
of them have in fact gone down even in terms of 1988 dollars.  So the bottom
line is that the current proposals are worth less by some 8-10 million dollars
than the offer in 1988.  Thus the current proposals which are, as Bob
describes, essentially the same and Bernard describes as essentially the same;
as a matter of fact, in terms of dollars, are not as good as the so-called
"take-it-or-leave-it" offer.

On the question of membership which has come up, the government keeps saying
the 
Lubicons have lost membership and the Lubicons have offered repeatedly to sit
down and identify anybody whose name appears on both lists and bring them in
and ask them where they want their names to appear.  The government has
consistently refused to do that.  The government has consistently refused to
provide lists for the Woodland Cree for example.  They say that's private
information.  Where on the other hand, Lubicon lists, which the Lubicon people
provided to the government, were used by people going house to house when they
were trying to talk people into joining the Woodland Cree, offering to buy
people such things as these little red bush trikes and all the rest of it if
they joined the Woodland Cree, and they used the Lubicon membership list to
identify the people to approach.  So that's not to say you won't get it. 
That's for the Lubicon people to decide.  But that's what's happened in the
past and I think the Commission should know it.

Jacques Johnson:  I have one last question.  It's a very quick one and to
follow through on John MacMillan's questioning.  Are there still potential oil
and gas resources on the proposed reservation?

Bernard Ominayak:  I guess that's anybody's guess.  At this point we've got no
knowledge as to whether there's any oil or gas within those 95 sq. miles. 
There's been some suspicion that there was some natural gas in part of the
area.  But at this point, I just can't say yes there is or no there is none. 
When the question arose from Mr. MacMillan, we did go out of our way, because
we could have easily pulled in I don't know how many wells if we wanted to,
without going out of our way to include wells within the 91 sq. miles right
around Lubicon itself.  The only thing I can say is I don't know if there's
anything under those 91 sq. miles at and around Lubicon at this point.

Jacques Johnson:  It's 4:35.  Maybe we should call it a day.  I would like to
thank all the Lubicon people who have appeared before our Commission today. 
Also members of the media and members of the general population.  We're very
happy and encouraged by your presence.  I'd also like to thank my peers here
at the front table and invite all of you to resume tomorrow morning at 9:30. 
We have some outstanding issues that we would like to discuss with you.  Among
some of those are the question of compensation that we have barely touched. 
There's the question of aboriginal rights.  Maybe something having to do with
self-government.  At the same time, the meaning of your presence within Treaty
8.  Right now, what does that really mean.  Perhaps we will deal a little more
with the infrastructure question that has been dealt with somewhat but maybe
there's more.  The members of the Commission will be meeting immediately after
the closure of this meeting.  We will be together reviewing what happened
today and also planning for tomorrow morning.  Of course, this meeting will be
in camera.  We have to have some time by ourselves.  So we'd like to thank you
all for your participation and for your presence.  Have a good evening.