Canada’s Stoney First Nation chiefs threatened Tuesday to stop renewing leases for oil and gas companies that operate on their lands unless a Canadian agency collects from the companies more than C$10 million (US$6.4 million) they allege their tribes are owed in royalties. The gas-rich fields located on the Stoney lands include Shell Canada’s Jumping Pound field and the Wildcat Hills field of Petro-Canada. Both companies said Tuesday they would pay their share of royalties, but want the government to resolve the issue.

The chiefs, who called a press conference to explain their plight, said they had become frustrated after years of attempting to collect the money, which they said would be used to improve the conditions of their 4,000 impoverished peoples. Indian Oil & Gas Canada is the energy royalties trustee and collects the royalties for Canada’s aboriginal peoples.

The chiefs charged the agency was dragging its feet, and said that unless the issue is resolved, they may move to not approve any lease renewals. The leases expire every five years. However, the chiefs did not threaten to blockade oil and gas sites, as done by groups in northeastern British Columbia last year. They said they wanted to maintain a good relationship with the industry, which is the region’s prime funding source.

“Each time they’ve come to the table to renew their lease or they want to do more exploration, this subject has come up,” Chief Darcy Dixon said. “We have basically told them that in order to do business with us they need to come to the table with Indian Oil & Gas and try to resolve this issue.”

Indian Oil & Gas said it has filed 19 lawsuits against 144 oil companies on behalf of all aboriginal groups owed money as a result of the royalties deduction decision. To date, the Canadian courts have ruled in favor of the aborigines, agreeing they are entitled to be reimbursed for various fees that energy companies had deducted from the royalties. However, it remains unclear how many years back the claims may include. In the late 1970s, energy companies began deducting fees for items such as gas processing and maintenance from the royalties, which the First Nation chiefs had then disputed.

After asking the Indian Oil & Gas to request repayment when the deductions began, the chiefs said they finally began writing to the companies themselves in 1991. Indian Oil & Gas then told the Stoneys that it would not try to collect. In 1993, the Stoneys filed a lawsuit against one of the operators there, PanCanadian Petroleum (now EnCana), and in 1998 a judge ruled in the Stoneys’ favor, saying the fees should not have been deducted.

The Alberta Court of Appeals upheld the decision in July 2000, but limited the exposure to deductions after 1987 — six years after the lawsuit was filed. The aborigines’ lawyer said that limitation only applied to PanCanadian, and did not apply to any of the other companies operating on Stoney lands. Since then, the Stoneys have made claims against the other companies, stating they are owed more than $10 million, plus interest. But the court ruling has created a six-year precedent in the eyes of the companies, who are sending money only for what the chiefs said was a fraction of the money owed.

Shell said it had made reimbursements in 2001. Petro-Canada said it had recently sent a check for C$70,000 for all funds “wrongly deducted” from the Stoneys, covering a six-year period when the tribe filed the lawsuit. However, the Stoneys claim Petro-Canada owes them C$2 million for improper deductions since 1978. Petro-Canada’s reimbursements were put in trust while the Canadian government resolves the issues.

“If this were a matter between two oil companies, or an oil company and a mineral rights holder, we believe things would move much faster,” said Stoney Chief Ernest Wesley. “There is C$10 million plus interest at stake here…We are unhappy that the government of Canada refused to obey the laws of Canada.”

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