Framing the Intervention: How Canada Staged its Takeover of the Lubicon Lake Nation

In 2009, against the backdrop of halted land claim negotiations and increasing oil extraction from Lubicon traditional territory, a challenge was brought against the Lubicon custom election code. The challenge triggered a response from band members, a response later dismissed by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC). This thesis presents the resulting situation as an impasse between conceptual frames. On the one hand, the majority of Lubicon people understand the issue of the disputed election code to have been resolved according to Lubicon custom. On the other hand, INAC officials have determined the Lubicon situation to be an ongoing internal leadership dispute, a determination that requires INAC to appoint a third party to manage Lubicon affairs on behalf of the Lubicon people. The thesis examines this intervention, and the consequences for the Lubicon, not as an INAC response to financial default, but as a political response stemming from INAC’s interests.