Churches to hold inquiry into flood agreement

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A coalition of seven national religious organizations announced it will be conducting an inquiry into the Churchill-Nelson hydro-electric project completed in the 1970s and responsible for massive flooding of the traditional lands of five Manitoba First Nations.

Calling the cultural, social and economic effects of the project "devastating to Aboriginal communities in the north," the Manitoba Aboriginal Rights Coalition - a branch of the Ottawa-based Aboriginal Rights Council - says it was asked to establish the inquiry by members of the Cross Lake First Nation (Pimicikamak Cree Nation). Cross Lake is the only community left of the five communities to reach a financial compensation deal with Manitoba Hydro and the governments of Canada and Manitoba under the terms of the 1977 Northern Flood Agreement (NFA).

The inquiry involves the United, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Unitarian, Christian Reformed, Lutheran and Mennonite churches.

Cross Lake has been locked in a fierce war of wills over the lack of implementation of the NFA, resulting in a blockade of Hydro facilities last year and an appeal to the United Nations.

The inquiry, according to Manitoba Aboriginal Rights Coalition officials, continues work started in 1973 by the Inter Church Task Force on Northern Flooding. At that time, a group of churches decided to hold a public inquiry into the proposed hydro development projects after the governments and Hydro refused to conduct their own. That commission, chaired by Justice C. Rhodes Smith, concluded that the governments and Hydro should commence negotiations to settle the impact of the flooding and take additional measures to mediate the future impact of the development.

That inquiry and its report contributed to the framing of the Northern Flood Agreement. However negotiations to implement the deal have dragged on for more than two decades.

Rev. Jack McLachlan, who acted as a commissioner on the 1973 church task force, believes it is time to publicly assess whether northern Aboriginal people "have had a fair share of the benefits generated in their backyards," he said.

"What we have here is fundamentally a moral question that requires that we have courage, faith and the political will to see that justice is done for the Native people; but, above all, to come to terms with the deep moral center of who we really are as people who were virtually gifted this land . . .," he said.

The inquiry will be conducted in Winnipeg over four days, running from June 21 to 25 (after Windspeaker's deadline) and will be comprised of five commissioners - Rev. Stan McKay, a former moderator of the United Church of Canada, Rev. Arie Van Eek, a former executive secretary for the Council of Christian Reformed Churches of Canada, Helen Norrie, chairperson for UNICEF Manitoba, Sharon Venne, a professor of Native Law at the University of Saskatchewan and John Atchison, a deacon in the Anglican Church from South Africa, who will be representing the World Council of Churches.

In an Aboriginal Rights Council press release, the group notes the Churchill-Nelson project has benefited Manitobans and Manitoba Hydro, a Crown Corporation, with huge profits, estimated at more than $2 billion, while effecting more than 20 per cent of the entire province's environment.

Despite the NFA negotiations between the five affected communities - Cross Lake, Split Lake, Nelson House, York Factory and Norway House - differences of opinion over its terms have raged unabated for 22 years.

The NFA itself contained extensive provisions intended to address adverse effects of hydro development "for the lifetime of the project," including land transfer compensation - four acres of new reserve land for each acre flooded - and economic development that would assure the "future viability of the communities."

However implementation of the NFA has been sporadic at best.

A 1986 federal task force review noted that "the NFA assured continued, undiminished levels of essential srvices to the Indian communities, but this commitment was not kept."

Indian Affair's documents of the day also revealed that, while the five NFA bands received $10,700 per capita in benefits from 1977 to 1983, during the same period other Manitoba bands received $26,100.

Manitoba Hydro and successive provincial governments have distanced themselves from the letter and spirit of the NFA agreement, and the understanding by the people in the communities who insist the agreement is, in fact, a treaty.

Even the 1991 Manitoba Justice Inquiry, which reviewed a range of justice issues in the wake of the J.J. Harper shooting, weighed in on the NFA controversy, concluding that the NFA was a modern-day treaty and "must be interpreted liberally from the Indian perspective so that its true spirit and intent are honored."

And the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples also offered a stinging indictment of the NFA in its report, noting it "has been marked by little or no action in implementation of NFA obligations and a long, drawn-out process of arbitration to force governments to implement their obligations."

Although four of the five communities have finalized Master Implementation Agreements on some of the NFA provisions, Cross Lake has steadfastly insisted that the NFA is an ongoing agreement and is demanding the provisions in it be honored by the governments and Manitoba Hydro.

The community has received a boost in the arm from former Indian Affairs Minister Warren Allmand who served under Pierre Trudeau's Liberal government when the NFA was drawn up.

Allmand has reiterated that the Liberal government's interpretation of the 1977 accord was that it was to provide relief throughout the life of the hydro project.

While the other four communities have reached Master Implementation Agreements on the NFA, the issue has sharply divided many of those communities where critics of the deals have claimed First Nations were subjected to a war of attrition by the governments, and, in articular, by Manitoba Hydro, that simply waited decades to wear the communities down and forced them to settle for far less than the original provisions contained in the NFA.

For those First Nation chiefs and councils, the negotiations have opened deep fissures among people in the communities who, faced with the prospect of continued poverty and lack of economic progress and development, have decided to take what was offered.

In the Norway House First Nation, the last community to sign a Master Implementation Agreement, that division played out repeatedly as votes and referendums held on the agreement were continually contested before the courts and resulted in a war of words between opponents and proponents of the deal.

Many of those wounds continue to linger, although Chief Ron Evans, who spearheaded a move to negotiate a Master Implementation Agreement, says he hopes the community can now forget the past and build its future.

"It was not an easy thing for this community to negotiate. There were strong feelings on both sides, however [chief and council] received a mandate to lead our community into the future and provide the economic base by which we could accomplish this. We could not wait forever. The needs of our people and community demanded that we negotiate an agreement," he said. "To do otherwise would have been irresponsible."

The position of Evans and his council is drawing increased support in the wake of the development the community has enjoyed over the last five years, including new schools, cultural and social service programs, new housing, roadways and sewer and water projects.

But in Cross Lake, the last election was based solely on the NFA issue, and a recent return to traditional forms of Cree governance has left the community of nearly 3,000 resolved to force the governments and Hydro to honor the 1977 deal. The community has gone as far as to pass its own law to ban any Master Implementation Agreement negotiations.

The community has also enlsted the support and assistance of the Quebec Council of Crees and their leader Grand Chief Matthew Coon Come in its fight. Coon Come was instrumental in blocking development of Cree territories by Hydro Quebec.

But for the Cross Lake community and its chief, Roland Robinson, there is little support from the other four affected First Nations who have already signed agreements. In part, Cross Lake has been politically isolated during the battle because of these agreements and the fight to derail Bill C-56, which is the legislation intended to legalize the master agreements.

However, Robinson and the community are quick to note their intention is not to become embroiled in disputes with their fellow Cree nations.

"Those communities did what they had to do and decided for themselves what was right for their communities, however we have to do what is right for our people," Robinson said.

Although the Manitoba Aboriginal Rights Coalition says it will accept representations from all parties in the NFA during the inquiry hearings, it is believed that neither the Manitoba government nor the federal government will participate. Indian Affairs Minister Jane Stewart has repeatedly stressed that her commitment to resolving the Cross Lake dispute is unequivocal.

One Manitoba government source said government considers the slated hearings to be "anything but impartial."

"You can tell by their presentation that they've already made up their minds that the whole hydro-development project was wrong, that the NFA was a lie and that everyone has been trying to victimize the First Nations, so we'd be crazy to show up, " he said. "But if I appeared, I would be asking the churches where they've been for the last 20 years."

It's a criticism the churches seemed unable to answer by press time, preferring to reply they have become re-involved because of requests by Cross Lake community members.

When asked how the churches could open an inquiry into alleged wrong-doing by the governments an