Another step has been taken in the unending struggle of the Lubicon Lake Crees for some real Canadian justice. A small group of their supporters, the Friends of the Lubicon, will be allowed to continue its boycott against the Daishowa paper-making giant of Japan.
Daishowa wanted the courts to rule the boycott illegal, but a judge in Ontario threw out the company’s legal challenge. It was an important victory for free speech. But the fight is not over. Daishowa immediately announced it is appealing. The three impoverished activists who were sued in Toronto will nave to waste more time and money in the courts to defend the right of free speech.
Even if Friends of the Lubicon win the next court case, and the next one, Daishowa will have bought itself years of officially-backed intimidation of its opponents.
As for the Lubicons, they are nowhere nearer an end to seeing their ancestral lands destroyed by loggers and oil companies. The history of the Lubicon struggle is sickening.
They have never signed a treaty or land agreement, and yet they are unable to have their rights enforced. Alberta and the Feds are in no hurry to settle the Lubicons’ decades-old land claim. Instead, the governments have used the most underhanded tactics imaginable to undermine and destroy a small community. Once self-sufficient, the people are now dependent on welfare and their trapping grounds destroyed.
There was one setback in the court ruling. Friends of the Lubicon can no longer accuse Daishowa of “genocide” against the Lubicon Crees. The word “genocide” does not apply to Daishowa’s activities, the judge said. Surely that part is some kind of joke that I will understand one day when I am much wiser… I just wonder how old of an Elder I will have to be to understand it.
Daishowa’s lawsuit will affect everyone in this country. Imagine a world where you can’t say anything negative about any company, entity, individual or the government, without the threat of being sued, even if what you say is true.
Incredibly, that’s the scenario facing many Native people, consumer activists and environmentalists in the U.S., where the phenomenon of SLAPP lawsuits is becoming more common. SLAPP means “Strategic Lawsuit Against Political Participation,” and is an obvious way to silence your critics.
Here in Canada, there is even more of a potential threat because of how loosely the libel laws are written here, compared to the U.S. where free speech is more of a sacred right.
Thank God Hydro-Quebec didn’t think of this strategy first. They could have sued for damages because of the Cree campaign to get the New York Power Authority and Con Edison to boycott Hydro’s power.
For all these reasons, we at The Nation recently agreed to join the boycott campaign, the firstpublication in Canada to do so. We encourage all those with a sense of justice to join in.
The threat of such lawsuits is an offense to democracy. One thing that can be said about Communism ora dictatorship is that the rules are clear. Free speech comes out of the barrel of a gun. In Canadathese days it seems that “democracy” means you have as much free speech as there is money in your bankaccount.
