Human Rights and the Environment

Case Study: Native Rights in Canada

Country: Canada

Region: North America

Issues: Resource Extraction, Indigenous People, Litigation

Unlike most First Nation groups in Canada, the Lubicon Cree of Northern Alberta have never signed a treaty with the Canadian government or reached a formal agreement about their land claims. Thus, the Lubicon felt apprehensive when the government of Alberta and Daishowa, Inc., a Japanese paper products company, entered into a Forest Management Agreement covering traditional Lubicon territories. In 1988, the chief of the Lubicon nation met with the vice-president of Daishowa to request that Daishowa refrain from logging until the Lubicon had settled their land claims. The result of the meeting is not clear, but Daishowa proceeded to build a pulp mill on the disputed land and made plans to begin logging in the area, whereupon Friends of the Lubicon, a small public interest group, launched what became an astonishingly successful, seven year boycott against Daishowa. The corporation responded by suing Friends of the Lubicon, claiming, among other things, that the organization was defaming Daishowa and seeking an injunction against the boycott. In April 1998, an Alberta court found that Friends of the Lubicon had defamed Daishowa, but that the boycott itself was "lawful in a democratic society which places a high value on free speech." Soon after the publication of this decision, Daishowa settled the dispute, finally agreeing not to log Lubicon lands until the land claims have been settled.[1]

[1] See Taiga-News, "Canada: FoL Boycott Ends," Aug. 1998; See Decision of the Ontario Court of Justice, Daishowa, Inc. v. Friends of the Lubicon, 39 Ontario Reports (3d) at 620 (1998).

Last Updated: 09/09/05