A Fight Against Time

CANADA

A Fight Against Time, 1995, 26 min.
Producer/Director: Ed Bianchi
Time: 7 pm
Date: Sunday November 5
Screens with: Darfur Diaries

Description

The Lubicon Cree of northern Alberta were promised a reserve in 1939, but despite all efforts, they have yet to see that promise upheld. Instead, both levels of government and dozens of multinational oil, gas and forestry companies have made huge profits from the Lubicon's resource-rich traditional territories, while the Lubicon are subject to welfare, and a life without adequate housing or running water.

Updates:
In 1990, the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) found that the actions of the Canadian Government violated the rights of the Lubicon Cree. Negotiations with the federal government began in 1998, and ended in 2003 when the Federal government refused to address the issue of self-government, as upheld in the Constitution and Supreme Court rulings. In October 2005, the UNHRC once again reiterated its criticism and called on the Canadian government to make every effort to resume negotiations. To date, they have not. The video was made when the Lubicons' traditional territory was threatened with clear-cut logging by the Daishowa Paper Mfg. Co. Following a successful international boycott of Daishowa, which included a landmark court decision in the Ontario (Canada) court of appeal in 1998, Daishowa agreed to stay off Lubicon land and has done so ever since.
A Fight Against Time is a short and gripping account of the Lubicon peoples' battle to survive as a community while facing the degradation of their land and loss of their livelihoods.

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