RIGHTS, RESOURCES, AND RESISTANCE: PAN-INDIGENOUS POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS IN NORTHEASTERN ALBERTA, 1968-1984 A Thesis Submitted to the Committee on Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences TRENT UNIVERSITY Peterborough, Ontario, Canada © Copyright by Kimberly Wilson 2015 Frost Centre for Canadian Studies & Indigenous Studies M.A. Graduate Program May 2015 ABSTRACT RIGHTS, RESOURCES, AND RESISTANCE: PAN-INDIGENOUS POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS IN NORTHEASTERN ALBERTA, 1968-1984 Kimberly Wilson The development of pan-Indigenous political organizations in northeastern Alberta in the context of oil and gas development during the 1970s created disparate effects on Indigenous communities in the region. Resistance to assimilation policies led the Indian Association of Alberta to transform itself into a unified voice that represented Aboriginal and treaty rights in the late 1960s; however, the organization lost legitimacy following the divergence of goals between influential Indigenous leaders, Harold Cardinal and Joseph Dion. Tripartite agreements began to unfold between the federal and provincial governments, the oil and gas industry, and individual local leadership; environmental degradation spread throughout the landscape. Some communities benefitted financially whereas other communities, like Lubicon Lake Nation, received little compensation and felt the full force of industrial contamination of their traditional territories. Without the support of pan-Indigenous political organizations, Lubicon Lake developed an individual response that was successful in gaining international attention to their conditions. Keywords: Northeastern Alberta, Canada, Indigenous politics, oil and gas industry, 1970s, political economy, environmental history, Indian Association of Alberta, Lubicon Lake Nation, Harold Cardinal ii Acknowledgments First and foremost, I want to acknowledge the Lubicon Lake Nation as their history and stories that they have continued to share with the world was the initial inspiration for the thesis. Megweetch. The guidance and support I have received from members of the Frost Centre community at Trent University have been integral to the writing of this thesis. My supervisor, Stephen Bocking has been a wonderful editor, and I appreciate all the guidance and patience he has shown throughout the process. The suggestions and careful notes made by Joan Sangster, committee member, has directed the writing in a cohesive and meaningful way. I would like to note Julia Harrison and Stephen Hill for all their supportive discussions that carried me through the initial years of the program as well as to John Wadland and Mark Dickinson whose compassion toward studying the history of the land that Canada is situated on led me toward the Frost Centre. Thank you. I am grateful to all my colleagues at the Frost Centre, especially Andrew Cragg and David Tough for their assistance with editing and critical discussions of the topic; I have learned so much through conversation alone. I want to acknowledge the Shelagh Grant Foundation and the Frost Centre Award committee for financing my primary research. The experience of archival work and visiting the sites of the story has been truly valuable. Thank you to my friends and family whose support has been crucial to the journey. Especially I want to acknowledge my mother, Martha Maureen, who left this world in August 2011. Her encouragement and support toward authenticity and education has been forever the key to following my interests and commitment to social and environmental justice. Rest in power. iii Table of Contents: Abstract………………………………………………………………………………..ii Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………….iii Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………..iv Introduction……………………………………………………………………………1 Chapter 1: Creating Canada: A History of Aboriginal and Treaty Rights, State Assimilation Policies, and Pan-Indigenous Resistance Movements…………………12 Development of Aboriginal and Treaty Rights………………………………19 Assimilation Policies of the Federal Government of Canada………………..31 Pan-Indigenous Political Organizations and Resistance……………………..47 Chapter 2: Relationship Transformation: Radical Pan-Indigenous Political Organizations, 1968-1975.………………………………………………….………………………..55 History of the Indian Association of Alberta………………………………...57 “Citizens Plus” or The Red Paper…………………………………………...67 Indigenous Intellectuals and Political Analysis……………………………...81 Chapter 3: Discussions at the Table: Indigenous Leadership, Communities, and Alberta’s Oil and Gas Industry, 1976-1979…..............………….…………..………………...85 Political Fractures Within Pan-Indigenous Organizations….……………….88 Oil & Gas Industry Moves Into the Communities……………………….…100 Political Analyses and Critiques.……………………………………..….…111 Chapter 4: Lubicon Lake Nation, 1979-1984…………….………………………...119 Exclusion From Treaty 8…………………………………………………...120 Legal Barriers for the Lubicon…………………………………………......126 Lubicon Lake in the Context of Canada………………………………...….136 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….144 iv 1 Introduction Northeastern Alberta is a unique landscape that has undergone dramatic changes over the last fifty years. Covered in spruce and pine trees, the diversity of the natural boreal landscape of northeastern Alberta encapsulates muskeg marshes, massive lakes, and, in the east, the Athabasca and the Peace rivers. Animals make their homes amongst the forested marshes as do people, all dynamically interacting with one another. Indigenous communities have always lived in the region. The communities’ social and economic relationships with the natural landscape include hunting, trapping, fishing, as well as spiritual connections, which for centuries linked generations. Since the early 1970s, the region has also been home to the tar sands, one of the largest oil and gas projects in the world. Economic, social, and spiritual relationships of Indigenous communities have become more fragile and contested since the start of the oil and gas industry in Alberta. The relationship between the communities of northern Alberta and the natural landscape has become strained in the later part of the twentieth century; communities have had to work hard to redefine their relationships with the land amidst the transitioning of their economies alongside a regional oil and gas boom. The purpose of this research is to examine the historical relations between the oil and gas industry, federal and provincial governments, and Indigenous communities of northeastern Alberta. A regional lens is used to understand the significance of the landscape to the political and economic intentions and actions of communities, industry, and government. The region’s resource industry, and more specifically its oil and gas industry, has had different impacts on individual communities. 2 Specific communities have experienced, both politically and economically, disparate industrial changes in the region. One important reason for those differences is that the natural landscape itself is so geographically diverse, therefore creating opportunities for multiple economic activities. As well as political and economic forces, the communities’ geography plays a significant role in the development of the region. The thesis contributes to ongoing research that considers industrial impacts on the landscape of northern Indigenous communities while interrogating the relationship between the Canadian state and Indigenous peoples through an examination of historical, political, and economic changes of northeastern Alberta since the early 1970s. The histories of individual communities are central to archival research and this thesis. The general history of First Nations and other Indigenous groups and the Canadian governments reveals the complexities and origins of important issues, including Aboriginal and treaty rights. The first chapter, therefore, is a literature review on the topic. The chapter examines three themes in the history of the making of Canada. The first theme is the development of the numbered treaties between the Crown and the federal government of Canada with First Nations. The treaties were significant in creating the contemporary concept of Aboriginal rights. Treaties represented the development of a formal relationship between the Imperial government of Britain, the federal government of Canada, and the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island. The intentions of the treaties were to enable the development and settlement of the land, but also to ensure that the inevitable changes colonialism would bring to Indigenous communities would be slow enough to ensure that Indigenous ways of life were not drastically changed. 3 The second theme was the contradictory implementation of assimilation policies by the federal government of Canada.1 Assimilation policies were aimed at absorbing Indigenous peoples into Euro-Canadian society. The contradiction lay in the fact that the terms of the treaties were to protect an Indigenous way of life; however, periodically, the federal government has introduced assimilation policies with the purpose of bringing Indigenous peoples into the capitalist economy. The policies ignored the intricate and complex relationships Indigenous peoples had with the natural landscapes around their communities. These policies caused severe damage to Indigenous peoples and their communities. As sure as there have been changes, there has been resistance. The third theme is the political organization and