Organizations committed to social justice, peace and humanitarian service have, for many years, called upon their members, governments, and all North Americans to establish a new covenant and just relationship with Aboriginal peoples. We sincerely pray that this continues. It is through such action and change that justice can take root, allowing for growth, understanding, reconciliation and healing. I believe this is truly what the Creator wants from us. We should not settle for less.

Today, Tataskweyak Cree Nation at Split Lake in Northern Manitoba, acknowledges and deeply appreciates the work being done by many religious and other organizations, towards the rectification and elimination of historic and present-day inequalities, racial barriers, and social injustices that keep First Nation (Tribal) communities in a humiliating state of economic dependence and poverty. Sadly, this oppressive situation has created in some a sense of anger, confusion, and paralysis. Many of us, however, continue to work, hope, pray and strive to create a better social and economic future for our Elders, our children, and ourselves. In doing so, we are realistic about our goals, and our changed economic and historic context. We are clear-sighted, and have no illusions. Thus have our experiences and history made us.

As Chief of Tataskweyak Cree Nation, it is my responsibility to represent and defend the Aboriginal rights and economic interests of my people. Unfortunately, it has come to our attention that your publication posted the above referenced article, “Damaged”, dealing with the effects of hydro development upon the Pimicikamak Cree at Cross Lake, including a negative position towards future hydroelectric development in northern Manitoba, which we believe could ultimately violate the Aboriginal rights and future long-term economic interests of our Tribe. The article contains expressed positions by Pimicikamak supporters criticizing the Implementation Agreements entered into by my Tribe and others and the view that further development on the Nelson River should be “out of the question”. It is my understanding that some religious and environmental organizations advocating for Pimicikamak Cree Nation, are presently attempting to create a boycott of Manitoba Hydro power in the United States, and are advocating a moratorium on further development of hydroelectric dams in northern Manitoba. Should these activists be successful, this will tragically result in an immense lost opportunity for my people.

On the basis of the Northern Flood Agreement (NFA), our 1992 NFA Implementation Agreement, and years of determined struggle, Tataskweyak Cree Nation has been able to secure the opportunity to explore the prospect of jointly developing and owning a hydroelectric dam with Manitoba Hydro on the Nelson River near Split Lake. This potential new dam would not occur in Pimicikamak Cree Nation’s traditional territory, but in our own. It would be over 250 kilometers (156 miles) downstream from Cross Lake and with an elevation drop of over 180 feet from Cross Lake to the dam site. It would also be separated from Cross Lake by an existing dam that has been in operation since 1956. Its operation would not change current water levels or flows in Pimicikamak traditional territory. If, as a community, we choose to move ahead with this potential development, no longer will all the economic benefits of hydroelectric development go to others. By building on past agreements, we will have succeeded in obtaining for our people, a more socially and economically just distribution of the costs and benefits of hydroelectric production in our traditional territory.

Tataskweyak Cree Nation has never interfered with Pimicikamak Cree Nation’s efforts to resolve their Northern Flood Agreement (NFA) claims against Manitoba, Manitoba Hydro, and Canada, and we have no desire to do so now. We genuinely sympathize and identify with Pimicikamak Cree Nation’s plight and struggle, and support their goal of achieving a just and honorable implementation of the Northern Flood Agreement for the benefit and health of their community. We cannot, however, support methods currently being employed to bring this about, and will not allow ourselves to become the unfortunate casualty of what often appear to us to be irresponsible, inconsiderate and imprudent “politics of embarrassment”.

Over many decades, the people of Tataskweyak Cree Nation have suffered through difficulties and change. We have experienced harmful environmental, socioeconomic, and cultural impacts resulting from colonialism, industrial events, and past hydroelectric development on the Churchill and Nelson Rivers. The negative aspects of other agents of change, such as government policies, welfare, residential schooling, television, roads to our community, and problems within the trapping and fishing industries, have also made themselves felt. My Tribe currently suffers from a high rate of poverty and unemployment, and lacks necessary educational, job and business opportunities. The young people are especially disadvantaged in this regard; and as our population continues to grow, the problem will only worsen. Although many in our community will continue to pursue traditional harvesting activities, it has been the experience of trappers, gatherers, hunters, fishermen and Elders that this cannot solely sustain us. We require additional forms of economic development and revenue for our Tribe.

After years of victimization, we are striving to place our community firmly back on the path to controlling and managing our own destiny. We are attempting to address our future in the modern world by building a sustainable economy, wisely using and sharing the natural resources around us.

Before hydroelectric development, the Churchill and Nelson Rivers provided for most of our traditional needs. This is no longer the case. The Lake Winnipeg Regulation – Churchill River Diversion projects of the 1970’s wrought havoc with the water and shoreline habitats of hundreds of kilometers of our territory. This has forever affected our ability to draw life from the Nelson River, and surrounding areas, to the same extent as our ancestors, grandparents, or even parents once did. Our Elders now tell us that we must find different but responsible ways to allow the rivers, lakes and adjoining lands to continue to provide for our children, our children’s children, and us. We cannot change all the negative effects of past developments. We cannot remove the dams. Many of the impacts are permanent and irreversible. We cannot go back.

Tataskweyak Cree Nation has taken significant and positive steps towards overcoming the socioeconomic challenges and environmental issues facing our people. In 1977 we signed the Northern Flood Agreement (NFA). In 1992, following enormous effort on the part of our Elders, Members, and Chief and Council, a comprehensive NFA Implementation Agreement was reached among Tataskweyak Cree Nation, Canada, Manitoba and Manitoba Hydro. As a result, our community received, among other things, compensation lands, recognition of our stewardship of our traditional lands and co-management rights, compensation for adverse effects, community and economic development support, and recognition of continuing NFA protection. Our people voted by a 93% majority to ratify the 1992 Implementation Agreement. Training and employment, creation of business opportunities, environmental clean-up and other mitigation efforts have been ongoing since the 1992 ratification.

There are presently four hydroelectric dams within our traditional territory. Our people never consented to their construction, nor did we have input into their design or ecological mitigation. All the major economic benefits of these dams flow to others, while the costs of environmental damage remain with us. In this we share a common history and experience with other Aboriginal communities in northern Manitoba, such as Pimicikamak Cree Nation. However, we are determined that the future will be different.

Tataskweyak Cree Nation will not consent to the construction of future hydroelectric developments within our traditional territory unless they conform strictly to Federal and Provincial environmental assessment standards. Those standards are indeed significantly more advanced today in Canada than they were thirty years ago when major hydro projects that forever impacted our lives were constructed. As well, the Tataskweyak Cree must be truly involved and participate in these assessments. But more importantly, projects must satisfy Tataskweyak Cree Nation’s own Aboriginal social and environmental criteria, based on our traditional ecological knowledge and respect for Mother Earth, and for the Creator of Life. We believe we have obtained from Manitoba Hydro a clear recognition and respect for our position. This is of great historic importance for all Aboriginal Tribes in Manitoba. We hope this will set a precedent for all future developments involving or affecting Aboriginal people. As well, it is our conviction that this project could provide a model and set a new standard for industry and governments, resulting in other equity partnerships and opportunities for Tribes in northern Manitoba.

We need your readers to understand why it is vital to our Tribe to keep our options open and protect this potential project. If Pimicikamak Cree Nation supporters succeed in endeavors to block the export of hydroelectric power south, we will have lost a major economic opportunity. In addition, a moratorium on future hydro development throughout all of northern Manitoba, could undo years of work, and perhaps ultimately jeopardize or destroy the prospect of our becoming self-sustaining. The initiatives of some religious and environmental activists on behalf of Pimicikamak Cree Nation have been undertaken without any consultation with us, and are being carried out seemingly in complete disregard to the political, social and economic rights and welfare of Tataskweyak Cree Nation, even though we have offered to meet with them so that there may be a better understanding of our concerns.

As to the rights of Tribes in Canada that were affected by hydro development, we would refer your readers to comments made by the Chair of the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission at a meeting held on November 30, 2000. The meeting was convened that day to address whether an investigation into the socioeconomic costs associated with large hydro generation projects ought to be undertaken by the Commission, and to consider whether, if such an investigation were to proceed, the Commission should stay consideration of the Manitoba Hydro bid to supply power to the Northern States Power Company (Xcel Energy Inc.) until such an investigation were completed. Pimicikamak lawyers argued that the socioeconomic costs borne by their client should be the subject of such an investigation.

In finding that no investigation into the socioeconomic costs associated with large hydro generation projects ought to be undertaken, the Chair of the Commission stated:

“But I also don’t have any problem in this docket saying that the socioeconomic costs are zero. And I can say that because of the existence of the 1977 agreement. The Canadian government and the tribal leaders decided what the appropriate trade-offs were for their people. And for me to come in now and substitute my judgment would be sheer lunacy, as far as I’m concerned. And to pretend like the consequences were unknown or surprising or something nobody thought of doesn’t make any sense to me because I have the 77 agreement in front of me. .”

The Chair went on to quote the following passage from the 1977 Northern Flood Agreement:

“Uncertainty as to the effects of the project with respect not only to the project as it exists at the date of this agreement, but also as it may develop in the future is such that it is not possible to foresee all the adverse results of the project, nor determine all those persons who may be affected by it and therefore it is desirable to establish through the offices of a single arbitrator a continuing arbitration instrument to which any person adversely affected may submit a claim . . . “

And finally he stated:

So I can look at this and say because PCN is a party to this agreement that contemplated these issues and provided vehicles for a dispute resolution, compensation, I have no trouble saying socioeconomic costs are zero.

On behalf of Tataskweyak Cree Nation, we respectfully request that your readers strongly consider this informed position of the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, that there are mechanisms for the enforcement of aboriginal rights within Canada. We are an example of a Tribe that has made those rights work.

We would also like your readers to be aware of the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development adopted in 1986, which supports the Tataskweyak position and which states, in Article 1:

“The right to development is an inalienable human right by virtue of which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized.”

Tataskweyak Cree Nation is greatly concerned that the actions of the well-meaning supporters of Pimicikamak, will result in a suspension of the human rights of our Tribe to the free and meaningful participation in development and the fair distribution of benefits resulting therefrom.

Your article also referred to the 1999 Interchurch Inquiry panel report on Northern Hydro Development. Unlike the situation in 1975 when the Interchurch Task Force on Northern Flooding held an inquiry at the urging of all five Northern Flood Tribes in Manitoba who were affected by the hydro megaprojects of the 1970's, this panel, without the full church support the former inquiry received, and without any legal standing, appears to have acted at the instigation only of Pimicikamak Cree Nation, and in its report to have criticized, at least by implication, the efforts undertaken by Tataskweyak Cree Nation to implement the provisions of the Northern Flood Agreement. The panel, having heard from Pimicikamak Cree Nation alone, appears to have accepted certain publicly expressed positions by some Pimicikamak Cree Nation leaders and advisors - positions with which Tataskweyak Cree Nation have, in the past, been forced to take issue.

While Tataskweyak Cree Nation did not request the hearing, was not involved at the hearings conducted by the panel, and made no submissions to the panel, inherent in the panel’s report are criticisms and concerns expressed with respect to the 1992 Split Lake Cree Implementation Agreement and the wisdom of the Tataskweyak Cree Nation people in choosing their path to implement the 1977 Northern Flood Agreement.

The panel took a position that would place a moratorium on future development involving Tataskweyak Cree Nation within their own Split Lake Resource Area. This position suggests that the human rights of the Members of Tataskweyak Cree Nation should be suspended, without having heard from Tataskweyak Cree Nation.

However, contrary to this written position in the inquiry report, the Very Reverend Stan McKay, one of the members of the Interchurch Inquiry panel, has publicly expressed his opinion that a moratorium on new dams is NOT necessary given Manitoba Hydro’s new approach to working with the affected Tribes. This position respects the efforts of Tataskweyak Cree Nation to become self-sustaining.

Moreover, William Osborne, a member of Pimicikamak executive council, wrote to the Winnipeg Free Press on May 3, 2002, stating that:

“we (Pimicikamak Cree Nation) will not support a boycott of electricity exports from Manitoba.”

David Miswagon, also a member of the same Pimicikamak executive council, stated in a television interview with Aboriginal Network:

“we’re not in the business of providing inaccurate information to the public. We want to make a few things clear with respect to the Pimicikamak Cree Nation also known as PCN. First of all we are not opposed to development and we’re not opposed to energy exports.”

We would like to take these leaders of Pimicikamak at their word, but that message is not only missing from your article, it is countered by the article referring to Pimicikamak appearing before the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to block Xcel’s purchase from Manitoba Hydro, and it is countered by the article stating the belief by Pimicikamak and their supporters that further industrial development on the Nelson River should be “out of the question”.

In light of all of the above, Tataskweyak Cree Nation finds it very difficult to understand or appreciate why some Pimicikamak supporters would be against our Tribe’s responsible endeavors to improve our situation, and provide economic hope for our people. We fail to understand why they must attempt to belittle our Implementation Agreement, and the Implementation Agreements entered into by three other Tribes. We fail to understand why their lawyer, with whom we have never met, and have never discussed or engaged in correspondence about our 1992 Implementation Agreement (consisting of several hundred pages of text), would state that our Agreement is “bad”. The Tataskweyak Cree would tell her otherwise. We have the capacity to make our own decisions, develop our own lands and economic potential, and plan our own common future. My community’s efforts to lessen poverty and unemployment by building a viable and sustainable economy are not immoral, and are not ill advised or ill considered. Years of effort have been expended in arriving at our position. We do not tell Pimicikamak what they must do to implement the Northern Flood Agreement. We do not suggest they must sign an Implementation Agreement, but neither should they or their supporters be critical of the path our people have chosen. We simply ask for respect to do things in a different way, a way that is seen by the Tataskweyak people as successful, and we also ask for respect for our rights (consistent with the voices of Pimicikamak leaders who say they do not support a boycott of Manitoba Hydro), to participate in future development, if we see fit.

We ask your readers to reflect on this, and we invite them to view our website (www.supportsplitlakecree.com) for a better understanding of the issues. We remain prepared to have interested groups meet with a delegation of our people, so that we can more fully explain our position, and understand their concerns. In dialogue together, perhaps we can arrive at a reasonable, fair, and balanced solution that will meet the needs of all. I truly believe that this is what the Creator wants from us.

Respectfully yours,

Chief Duke Beardy
Split Lake, Manitoba
Canada

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