Working Group on Indigenous Peoples
18th Session - 24 - 28, July 2000
PRESENTATION TO THE EIGHTEENTH SESSION OF THE
WORKING
GROUP ON INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS
July 24-28, Palace of Nations, Geneva, Switzerland
by the SADDLE LAKE FIRST NATION, ALBERTA, CANADA
Madame Chairperson
We are pleased to join with you, the official
Working Group and other First Nations of indigenous peoples from around the world in this
the eighteenth Session of the Working Group. We have joined with you and others of our
fellow indigenous nations over the past years to present our perspectives and to raise our
voices about the concerns and the welfare of our people and of our nation. Today, we join
you and our fellow nations in yet another historic meeting to once again press our
concerns in this body and to seek corrective measures for our people of Saddle Lake First
Nation in Alberta, Canada.
In October of 1763, the Crown of Great Britain
issued a Royal Proclamation putting forth the Crown‚s relationship to the First
Nations of North America. The Proclamation clearly recognized that our First Nations
had title to land and that we had the right recognized by the Crown to govern those lands.
Further, no lands could be taken or occupied until such lands were surrendered by our
First Nations to the Crown.. In 1876, the Saddle Lake First Nation entered into Treaty ix
with the Crown of Great Britain through the Crown in Right of Canada.
Contrary to the wording of the English version
of Treaty Six, 1876, we never "gave up, surrendered, relinquished or in manner
released forever" our lands and resources. We have been, however, since the passage
of the Indian Act in 1876 colonial municipal islands of poverty under the jurisdiction of
the Government of Canada with direct negative fiscal and resource impacts from the
Province of Alberta.
Today, we live on handouts from the Federal
Government through what is entitled ,"Comprehensive Funding Arrangements." These
funding arrangements do not recognize our inherent rights to self-government and
self-determination nor do they recognize that we have residual interest and trust
title to our lands, mines, minerals resources in our indigenous, traditional and treaty
lands.
The ,,Comprehensive Funding" is presented
as a funding ,,arrangement" to our First Nation, arrangements which clearly indicate
that such is given as an annual gratuity contribution of Canada from the tax
revenues and that such ,"gratuity" to the Indians must be severely controlled.
Such ,"arrangements" never recognize that said funds really come from our
unceded lands and resources of which we are the holders of the interests and trusts of
said lands and resources. Such ,,arrangements" are never negotiated with our First
Nation nor do the ,,arrangements" in any manner recognize our authority for consent.
Furthermore, detailed and specific restrictive conditions require detailed audits,
liability and indemnity clauses against our First Nation, constant oversight surveillance
and actual third party take-over of our First Nations governance unilaterally determined
and exercised by the Department of lndian Affairs of Canada.
When the current Liberal Government came to
power in Canada nearly ten years ago, one of their party planks in their policy manual
called the Red Book was that the Government of Canada under the Liberal Party would
recognize the ,,inherent right of self-government" and that such a right
would be ,,recognized and affirmed by Section 35(1) of the Constitution of Canada.,
1982. As of July, 2000, no such authority has been clearly recognized in law and no such
recognition and affirmation has been legally affirmed by the Constitution, 1982 through
appropriate legislation or by judicial decree. We remain colonial municipalized islands of
poverty in our own lands and treated as illegal, unfit, irresponsible and illegal aliens
in our lands.
Central to our condition as ,,islands of
municipalized colonies" is the fact that, as stated above, our lands and resources
were unilaterally taken by the Crown-in--right-of Canada as the Crown of Canada
unilaterally, but wrongly, interpreted our First Nations by entering into Treaty Six as
,,releasing, surrendering and forever giving -up" our title to our lands and
resources. Under that operative assumption
and in
accordance with Section 109 of the Constitution, 1867. the Federal Government transferred
those Federal Crown lands (our lands), mines and minerals to the Province of Alberta under
The Alberta Natural Resources Transfer Act. 1930. Thus, the Province of Alberta has had
the complete control, use and benefit of our lands, mines and minerals since that time and
our First Nation has been denied any use, benefit, royalties, rents or returns on any of
our lands while we remain confined to small islands of poverty known as ,,reserves"
under the Indian Act of Canada.
Saddle Lake has recognized, along with other
First Nations of Treaty Six of Alberta, that the provision in the Alberta Natural
Resources Transfer Act referring to the fact that such ,,lands, mines and minerals"
are transfernce to the Province of Alberta subject to any trusts existing in respect
thereof. or to any interest other than that of the crown in the same, is a lawful
recognition of our residual and inherent title of our ,,interests and trusts" in our
lands and resources.
To that recognition, the First
Nations of Treaty Six have developed a Statement of Claim concerning our rights to our
lands and resources as lawfully recognized in the Alberta Resources Act. The Statement of
Claim clearly affirms the Treaty Six First Nations' claim that the
The Alberta Natural Resources Transfer Act,
1930 recognizes and affirms our trusts and interest in our indigenous, traditional and
Treaty lands and natural resources of the First Nations of Treaty 6, Alberta and, it
further states that said recognition and affirmation of the First Nations of Treaty 6
Alberta trusts and interest in our aboriginal, traditional and treaty lands and natural
resources are recognized and affirmed in Section 35(1) of the Constitution. 1982.
Madame Chairperson, Saddle Lake First Nation along with our fellow First Nations of Treaty
Six, Alberta are in the process of giving notice to the parties concerned that it is our
intent and objective as First
Nations of Treaty Six, Alberta to secure our interests and trusts in and over our
indigenous, traditional and treaty lands and natural resources for the benefit of our
First Nations of Treaty Six, Alberta
Madame Chairperson, you have been involved over
the past two years with developing a position paper for the Working Group on the
relationship of indigenous peoples to their lands. Saddle Lake First Nation pepared for
you an analysis and description of our view and position of our people to our lands
and to our natural environment. As stated in our paper to you, our lands and resources
offer us not only the physical beneflts as food, shelter and clothing, but our lands
provides us with our view of the world and its reality; it provides us with our religous
and spiritual foundations and the meaning of our lives in this world and the next;
it provides for our sustainability as children of the Creator and of our existence on
Turtle Island both physically and spiritually and it provides us with the framework for
our morals and ethics. Our lands form the basis of how or people shall live together
in our communities withbalance and harmony. We have been denied these foundations when our
land and resources have been taken from us!
In summary, Madame Chairperson. Saddle Lake
First Nation comes before this Working Group to say to our fellow First Nations and to the
Nation-States represented here, specilically Canada, that our First Nation of SaddIe Lake
must be recognized as a Nation and not as a municipal colonial island of poverty in the
Province of rich Alberta; that we must reclaim our lands and resources for the benefit of
our people both physically and spiritually for the welfare of our community through
balance and harmony.
Madame Chairperson, let it be known on the
floor of this eighteenth session of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations that
Canada can no longer deny our rightful place as a FIRST NATION recognized and affirmed in
the Royal Proclamation, 1763 and further recognized and affirmed in Section 35(1) of the
Canadian Constitution of 1982.
THANK YOU,
Saddle Lake First Nation
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