Cree Nation asks Crown to honor its word

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When Manitoba's northern affairs minister, David Newman, insinuated that Cross Lake was jeopardizing the development of a $65 million titanium mine through its insistence that the governments of Canada and Manitoba and Manitoba Hydro honor a 1977 Northern Flood Agreement, it only served to heighten a dispute that has been raging for two decades.

Newman's very public remarks in January served to draw further attention to the plight of the northern Cree community of 4,000 members. The community has been lobbying the United Nations and drawing the support of the Quebec Cree in its struggle to implement a deal intended to compensate the community for the devastating cultural, economic, environmental and social effects the hydro development projects in the early 1970s had upon the community.

The Cree community's traditional government and ultimate authority, the Pimicikamaki Cree Nation (comprised of four distinct councils representing the Cross Lake Band government, an Elders council, a women's council and a youth council) says the issue has always been about the overdue implementation of the flood agreement.

The community and Gossan Resources, the company that staked and discovered the titaniuim deposit, signed a joint agreement three years ago in which they would share profits from the mine. But the community's return to a traditional system of governance less than two years ago and the failure to resolve the flood agreement dispute has hardened opposition to any more deals.

"We are not rushing into development. The minister knows we have good reasons for caution before we rush into developing a new mega-project on our lands. We are concerned to ensure that we truly do get benefits from developing our land, and to ensure that we do not find all the benefits going south," said vice-chief John Miswagon.

Central to Newman's insulting approach, says Miswagon, is the province's contention the land where the proposed mine would be developed is "claimed" land.

"It is not claimed land, but reserve land, which was already selected in 1983 as part of the [flood agreement] and which the province knew we had selected."

Up until the last band election in 1997, held exclusively on the issue of the flood agreement, it appeared that Cross Lake would also go the way of four other communities, Norway House, Split Lake, Nelson House and South Indian Lake, that are also signatories to the flood agreement. Those four communities subsequently negotiated separate comprehensive compensation agreements.

But that likelihood disappeared when the newest chief and council were elected and the community completed its return to a traditional governance system, insisting the intent of the original agreement be honored.

The flood agreement committed the provincial and federal governments and Manitoba Hydro to seriously address poverty, unemployment and the cultural dislocation in the communities affected by the Hydro development and flooding.

Community opposition to alternate or comprehensive agreement is so pronounced that the chief and council are formally banned from negotiating any type of side deal or conducting referenda on such agreements.

However, earlier last year it appeared that progress was finally being made after the two levels of government and Manitoba Hydro signed a joint statement acknowledging they would set aside the concept of negotiating a comprehensive settlement. They would instead focus on implementing the original flood agreement "in accordance with its spirit and intent."

That hope faded when Newman called last month's press conference to say, "the companies are getting fed up with [Cross Lake's] lack of support for the [titanium mine] project."

Clearly irritated by the province's latest tactics, Miswagon delivered a strong response.

"We have already been the victims of a Manitoba Hydro development that is a man-made disaster when our traditional lands were flooded for Hydro development. Twenty-one years ago, the governmens of Canada and Manitoba and Manitoba Hydro undertook to protect us from the effects of development. They did not..."

The community has received significant moral support in its battle from the Mennonite Central Committee and former Indian affairs minister Warren Allmand, who was in charge of negotiating the original flood agreement.

Allmand has confirmed the original intent and scope of the deal and has been lobbying the Liberal government to finally honor the 1977 deal.

Disaffected members from other flood agreement communities that signed comprehensive compensation deals have also come out to publicly support Cross Lake's insistence that the signed 1977 deal is in fact a treaty.

"We have seen what has happened in other communities, spoken to people from those communities and are determined to protect our community," said Miswagon. But that position has not come without a price.

While the other four communities have reaped financial benefit and land compensation by signing supplementary deals to the flood agreement, Cross Lake continues to be one of the poorest reserves in the province. It suffers from an unemployment rate in excess of 90 per cent, chronic under-funding and the financial inability to undertake infrastructure projects.

And the environmental contamination created by the flooding during the hydro development projects has severely affected fishing, hunting and traditional resource activity, said Pimicikamaki Cree Nation youth council chief, Jason Miller.

"This is a battle for our traditional Aboriginal and treaty rights. As a community we have just begun to regain our traditional strengths and assert our rights of self-determination and this fight goes to the heart of what we want to become as a nation. We signed a deal in good faith and so did the governments. It's up to them now to honor their promises and allow us the dignity taken from us by the damage they did to our nation."