Land Claim Deal Reached for Lubicon Lake Band

Thursday, 25 October 2018 16:26

The official logo (photo courtesy of Lubicon Lake Band)

The agreement will give the first nation 246 square kilometre of land.

An Indigenous community in northern Alberta finally has a land claim deal after decades of failed negotiations, broken promises, standoffs and global condemnation.

The Alberta and federal governments say the agreement will give the Lubicon Lake Band 246 square kilometres of land and 113 million dollars.

There will also be money to pay for roads, housing and utility services for 682 residents who have long struggled with poverty and substandard housing.

Chief Billy Joe Lubican says the deal provides renewed hope for the band.

But he says it came after his people lived in squalor as billions of dollars from oil, gas and timber were extracted from their land.

British officials missed the Lubicon as they negotiated with Indigenous groups to complete Treaty 8 in 1899.

By 1939, Ottawa agreed that the Lubicon deserved legal title to their land but never followed through.

In the late 1980s, a United Nations committee criticized Canada for its treatment of the Lubicon.

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