Canadian Oil Imperialism and the Lubicon First Nation
Date: Friday, May 06 2005
Topic:
This is happening right in my own back yard--I live between the DMI plant (Daishowa Marubeni) and the Shell Plant mentioned in the article. -Susan
Canada’s Oil Invasion
by Kim Petersen
www.dissidentvoice.org
April 25, 2005
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Apr05/Petersen0425.htm
“The white man made us many promises, but he kept only one. He promised to take our land and he took it.”
-- Manpiya Luta, Red Cloud, 1882
The world’s largest known hydrocarbon resource is neither in Iraq nor in Saudi Arabia. The oil sands in the western Canadian province of Alberta comprise the largest known hydrocarbon reserves -- estimated at over 300 billion barrels of currently recoverable oil. (1) The oil sands contain bitumen, a viscous mixture of hydrocarbons that requires melioration into crude oil before it can be refined into various fuels. Recovery of the oil is energy intensive, environmentally disruptive, and expensive (although the soaring cost of oil is making extraction more profitable).
The oil sands are found in three different deposits in northern Alberta: Athabasca, Peace River and Cold Lake. Situated east of Peace River is the 10,000 square kilometer traditional territory of the Lubicon Lake First Nation, a Cree community of about 500 people.
The community was overlooked when the federal government sought treaties with First Nations in the area in 1899. Since then, the federal government has neglected its responsibility to look after the best interests of the Lubicon while the Alberta government began to sell off the resources to corporate interests.
The presence of oil and minerals in Lubicon territory attracted the oil company, Petro-Canada, and other Big Oil interests such as Shell and Imperial Oil. Japanese logging giant Daishowa came to clear-cut trees on Lubicon territory.
University of Colorado Ethnic Studies professor Ward Churchill wrote, “The Canadian state itself exists on the basis of the expropriation of native land and resources, the subordination of native polities.” (2) The tiny Lubicon nation finds itself a minority population pitted against different levels of government, multinational corporations, and a settler court system.
Capitalist exploitation of the traditional territory of the Lubicon Lake First Nation persists. In 2002, over 1,700 well sites and several kilometers of pipelines had already been erected in Lubicon territory. (3) The federal government and Alberta government are complicit in this theft of Lubicon land and resources.
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 decreed that Original Peoples were not to be “molested or disturbed” in unceded or unsold territories. Because of past “great Frauds and Abuses,” colonists were strictly forbidden “from making any Purchases or Settlements whatever” with the Original Peoples. The legally-binding Proclamation was an attempt to convince Original Peoples of “our Justice.” (4) Instead, Original Peoples are besieged by an “internal colonization,” whereby, the colonizing power incorporates contiguous areas and people within itself.
The ultimate aim is assimilation of Original Peoples and their territory. In 1920, an official of the Department of Indian Affairs stated the Canadian government’s intention toward the Original Peoples with surprising candor: “Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department...” (5) The decolonization struggle of Original Peoples is epitomized in the Pacific coast province of British Columbia (BC) where a corporate-governmental collaboration is arrayed against them. Examples abound: the Haida Gwaii First Nation are at loggerheads with timber-falling behemoth Weyerhaeuser, the Secwepemc people struggle for rights to their territory, which they call Skwelkwek'welt. (6)
Full story: http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Apr05/Petersen0425.htm
For more on the Royal Proclamation, see Anthony Hall's work:
http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php?story=20031114122047147&query=The%2BAmerican%2BEmpire
http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php?story=20031030172621100&query=Tony%2BHall
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