As Canada spends billions on the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric dam project, Innu and Inuit land defenders concerns continue

Photo: Allyson Gear of Postville, Nunatsiavut drums in the middle of the highway as about 60-70 people blockade the entrance to the Muskrat Falls project in Labrador. October 19, 216. Photo by Justin Brake.

The Canadian government is finalizing an agreement with the province of Newfoundland and Labrador to financially restructure the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project.

The federal government will reportedly give an annual cash transfer to the province totalling $3.2 billion over the remaining lifespan of the Hibernia oil project.

The federal government-owned Canada Hibernia Holding Corporation owns 8.5 per cent of Hibernia, a large oil rig stationed 315 kilometres offshore of St. John’s. ExxonMobil is the largest shareholder in Hibernia. The platform produces 220,000 barrels of oil per day. As of December 2016, Hibernia had produced one billion barrels of oil over a 20-year period. In 2017, the underwater drilling was expected to produce for another 15 to 20 years (though the province now says it should continue operating until 2047).

The agreement also includes $2 billion in federal financing, with $1 billion of that a loan guarantee and the other $1 billion an investment in the transmission line that links the Muskrat Falls project to Newfoundland.

While the media coverage has focused on the $13 billion cost of the project, and the impact on electricity rates in the province without federal assistance, the story of the Innu and Inuit land defenders who have opposed the cultural and environmental impacts of this megaproject has not garnered the same attention.

Yesterday, an Innu Nation media release said, despite promises, it had been left in the dark about the announcement. Their statement highlighted: “Our voices will be heard and our rights will be respected. Our land is not a commodity to be sold to solve (Newfoundland and Labrador’s) economic crisis.”

The megaproject

The Muskrat Falls hydroelectric generating facility is comprised of the 32-metre high North Dam, the 29-metre high South Dam and the reinforced North Spur landmass on the lower Churchill River on traditional Innu territory in Labrador. About 2,000 Inuit and settlers live downstream of Muskrat Falls.

The megaproject was first proposed in 2010 by Newfoundland and Labrador premier Danny Williams. It was to cost $6.2 billion. In November 2012, Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper agreed to guarantee up to $5 billion of the project’s debt.

While the Nunatsiavut government (of the self-governing Inuit region of Labrador) and NunatuKavut Community Council (representing the Inuit-Métis of southern Labrador) opposed the project from the start, the Innu Nation (who later said they had been misled about its impacts) signed an Impact Benefit Agreement.

Construction on the dam began in 2013.

Innu and Inuit opposition

In February 2016, Innu Elder Tshaukuesh (Elizabeth) Penashue stated: “Muskrat Falls is not finished yet. I can see a big change in the trees, a lot of trees are dead. I can see the big machine, big trucks. There are so many things they’re going to kill in the environment. I’m very sad. I sit down sometimes, thinking about what’s going to happen.”

By June 2016, the Innu Nation, the Nunatsiavut government and the NunatuKavut Community Council came together to express concern about the toxic impacts of the dam. They noted the methylmercury levels that would be generated in the waters by the trees, plants and soil when the basin was flooded. Notably, Lake Melville is where many Indigenous people fish, hunt and gather their traditional foods.

Project site occupied in 2016

In October 2016, Innu and Inuit land defenders, along with settler allies, occupied the project site to protect their traditional foods and way of life.

The RCMP arrested 28 people in relation to that occupation with a variety of charges including disobeying a court order, mischief and mischief over $5000.

Despite this, the Trudeau government increased its loan guarantee for the Muskrat Falls project by an additional $2.9 billion in November 2016.

In June 2017, Inuk land defender Beatrice Hunter was jailed for 10 days in a men’s prison for refusing to stay a kilometre away from the construction site, a violation of the undertaking she had signed when she was arrested at the occupation in October 2016.

UN concerns

In June 2019, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and hazardous substances and wastes, Baskut Tuncak, urged Canada “to use its leverage as the largest investor in the project to review whether UNDRIP [the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples] compatible procedures were followed for all affected indigenous peoples, and to prevent the release of methyl mercury.”

In August 2019, the provincial Crown corporation Nalcor Energy began raising the water levels in the 59-kilometre-long reservoir.

Nunatsiavut President Johannes Lampe stated: “With reservoir impoundment under way, the time bomb is ticking on the future of those who depend on the Churchill River and Lake Melville for sustenance, and on the health, culture and way of life of many Labrador Inuit. …If this is what reconciliation is all about, then we want no part of it.”

The megaproject is now expected to become fully operational this November.