By Roger Annis
Six days ago on April 5, 2013, a squad of some 50 RCMP officers swooped in on several dozen Aboriginal protesters in Labrador who were blocking the road leading to the proposed hydro electric project at Muskrat Falls on the Lower Churchill River. Eight people were arrested, including a former Liberal Party MP, Todd Russell. Protesters oppose the development and also say there has been no meaningful consultation with the Inuit and Métis people through whose traditional territory the Lower Churchill flows.
From a news account: “We’ve been pushed around for generations,” said Todd Russell, president of the NunatuKavut Community Council (formerly the Labrador Métis Association), who was taken into custody along with Elder James Learning for blocking roads to protest the controversial Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project. “We will defend ourselves in the court system, but we will continue to assert our aboriginal rights to our traditional territory, and we will continue to mount protest after protest if that’s what it takes to have our views known and our rights respected.”
The damming of the Lower Churchill at Muskrat Falls is a $7 billion (estimated) project that would produce 824 MW of electricity. The power would be transmitted to Newfoundland via cable under the Straight of Belle Isle. A portion would then branch off to an undersea cable under the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Cape Breton Island (province of Nova Scotia).
The Nova Scotia component of the line across the Gulf would be 300 MW; more capacity on the line could be available for export to the U.S. These would be the first undersea electricity cables in the region.
Presently, production from dams along the upper Churchill River flows to Quebec under a long-term agreement with the state utility Hydro Quebec dating back to the 1960s. That agreement is deeply resented in Newfoundland and Labrador because of the low price it fetches. Hydro Quebec has always refused demands to accept increases in the long-term prices that were fixed at the time the dams were financed and constructed.
The Newfoundland component of Muskrat Falls production would allow the province to retire its only fossil fuel generated power station (located on the east coast of the island portion of the province). The government of Newfoundland and Labrador has also said that the project could be used to power an expansion of the Voisey’s Bay nickel mine located on the extremely harsh and remote coast of northern Labrador. The mine expansion has been approved but the power source is not yet decided. Voisey’s Bay is an ultra-modern nickel mine owned by the Brazilian multinational company Vale. (See a map here.)
The police action at Muskrat Falls is proof that while in areas of the country located close to urban centers, provincial and federal governments are sometimes inclined to tread carefully when land and sovereignty disputes with Aboriginal peoples arise, it’s still open season for police violence in the hinterlands.
One further news story: http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/04/05/eight-people-arrested-in-renewed-protest-against-controversial-muskrat-falls-hydro-project/
