Oil and gas extraction near the Lubicon Lake Indian Nation should be halted until the Canadian government addresses the “appalling” living conditions of the northern Alberta Cree band, says Miloon Kothari, the UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing.

Kothari made his comments October 22 in Ottawa, after a two-week tour of the country — including stops at Edmonton and the Lubicon Lake Indian Nation, which is about 400 kilometres north of the capital. Resource companies have earned billions of dollars from the oil and gas underneath Lubicon land, but the band of about 500 still lives in poverty.

“I could witness how families still live without access to water… and how development projects… continue to lead to the loss of lands and the asphyxiation of livelihoods and traditional practices,” Kothari said in his “preliminary comments” (he plans on putting together a full report on Canadian housing for next year).

In 1900, when federal employees presented Treaty 8 to bands in northern Alberta, they missed the Lubicon — likely because of the band’s remote location away from major rivers. The UN has repeatedly urged Ottawa to settle the Lubicon land claim.