August 26, 2020
Jagmeet Singh, MP
Leader of the NDP
Critic for Indigenous Relations and Services
Re: Following Up on One-Year-Old Request to Meet Over Muskrat Falls, Gull Island and other Megadams Affecting Indigenous Peoples
CC: Niki Ashton, Leah Gazan
Dear Mr. Singh,
We write during a month of painful anniversaries. August 7 marked the first anniversary of the beginning of the impoundment of the Muskrat Falls megadam’s reservoir in 2019. This $13.7 billion megadam never received the free, prior and informed consent of all Indigenous peoples affected, and now we are dealing with the fearful effects of this dangerous project.
The impoundment – undertaken without the necessary clearance of trees, brush, and vegetation – means only one thing: the methylmercury poisoning of an Indigenous country food web that has existed since time immemorial. This is the latest in a centuries’ old Canadian strategy of poisoning or eliminating by other violent means the Indigenous food supply.
This month, we mark another painful anniversary. It has been one year since we wrote an open letter to you requesting a meeting and action from you and the NDP to stand up for the rights of those downstream of Muskrat Falls. In that year, despite our many calls, emails, and personal delivery of this request to NDP headquarters in Ottawa, neither you nor your staff have once responded.
This is totally inconsistent with your fine words about reconciliation and Indigenous rights. As a federal leader who appointed himself responsible for the party’s Indigenous rights portfolio, you have unfortunately failed to address this federal issue: indeed, $9.2 billion in federal money is backing this project, whose development process completely flies in the face of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
This fact was recognized in June, 2019 by the United Nations, which called on "the Federal Government to use its leverage as the largest investor in the [Muskrat Falls] project...to prevent the release of methylmercury,” while noting that the project had not received free, prior and informed consent of all affected Indigenous peoples.
Meanwhile, Muskrat Falls Inquiry Commissioner Richard LeBlanc wrote in the inquiry’s conclusions earlier this year that the dam’s proponents “did not act fairly with the Nunatsiavut Government, the NunatuKavut Community Council and the Innu of Ekuanitshit. GNL [Government of Newfoundland and Labrador] and Nalcor created an environment of mistrust and suspicion by not allowing all of the Indigenous Peoples and other concerned citizens to engage in a meaningful and transparent consultation process….Even today, GNL has failed to ensure that its commitments, and those of Nalcor, regarding environmental matters related to the Project are being properly tracked, monitored and acted upon.”
While the Conservatives and Liberals have long said this is out of their hands and dismissed it is a provincial matter, the federal government is the single largest investor in this project and should have – and could still – use its leverage to limit the damage being done on a daily basis. That is why we are again writing to you as a federal leader who says he cares about Indigenous rights.
Our request to meet with you is not simply to discuss past grievances regarding Muskrat Falls. We also wish to speak with you because – even after the disastrous process that has led to Muskrat Falls – plans are now afoot to build a megadam almost three times as large upstream at Gull Island. The harmful impacts of yet another megadam are almost incalculable.
Those who tout megadams as green energy have bought into a false panacea to address climate change. From the production of methane to the destruction by flooding of traditional habitats to the contamination of Indigenous food webs, such projects are genocidal in their impact. Heat pollution from these dams as well as silica depletion, loss of sediment and nutrients, and a massive negative effect on fisheries are just a few of the detrimental effects on the marine environment of the St. Lawrence River, the Gulf of Maine and the George’s Banks. We see this same pattern across the land, from Muskrat Falls to the many destructive dams built by Manitoba Hydro to Site C in the Peace River region. The time for a national reckoning for how these dams have devastated Indigenous nations is long past; the time for discussion with you on how we can stop these disasters in the making (while also addressing the ongoing damage of completed projects) is now.
While profoundly disappointed in the refusal of you and your party to even consider communicating in response to our many requests, we still hope that as you continue in your position, you will have a change of heart and discuss this critical issue with us. We have much information to share with you.
Please feel free to contact the Ontario Muskrat Solidarity Coalition (tasc@web.ca, 613-300-9536) and Grand Riverkeeper Labrador Inc. (rebnfl@gmail.com) so that we may work with you to end the suffering caused both by current megadams and those still planned.
Marjorie Flowers, Happy Valley Goose Bay, Labrador
Roberta Frampton Benefiel, Happy Valley Goose Bay, Labrador
Denise Cole, Happy Valley Goose Bay, Labrador
Erin Saunders, Happy Valley Goose Bay, Labrador
Beatrice Hunter, Happy Valley Goose Bay, Labrador
Bryanna Brown, Happy Valley Goose Bay, Labrador
Rita Monias, Pimicikamak Okimawin
Matthew Behrens, Unceded, Unsurrendered Algonquin Territory (aka Ottawa)
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