Cree Nation Partners Presentation for CEC KHLP Panel October 2013 Cree Nation Partners and the Keeyask Generation Project by CNP Representative To understand the decision of the Cree Nation Partners – Tataskweyak Cree Nation and War Lake First Nation - to approve the Keeyask Project, you need to know something of our history. Tataskweyak Cree Nation, or TCN, is a nation of Cree people who are the descendants of the original inhabitants of north-eastern Manitoba. The population of TCN is nearly 3500 of which about 65% live on-Reserve. War Lake was recognized as a separate Band in 1980. Before that, most War Lake Members had been Members of TCN. The community at Ilford, where the main Reserve of War Lake is located, is on the Hudson Bay Railway line and used to be an important supply and distribution point for the TCN community at Split Lake and points further north and east. War Lake has a population of 269 Members, with 75 living on-Reserve. Two mighty rivers flow through our lands – the Churchill and the Nelson. Our traditional lands include the Split Lake Resource Management Area and the War Lake Traditional Use Area within the Split Lake Resource Management Area. The Split Lake Resource Management Area is more than 43,000 square kilometres in area, representing just under 7% of Manitoba, an area approximately the size of the proposed World Heritage Site on the east side of Lake Winnipeg or the country of Denmark. Our traditional territories are even broader than the Split Lake Resource Management Area. The Split Lake Resource Area includes lands bordering the Nelson River all the way to the Hudson Bay coast as recognized in the 1992 NFA Implementation Agreement between Canada, Manitoba, Manitoba Hydro and TCN. From time immemorial we have lived here — an organized society that hunted, fished, trapped and harvested, governing ourselves according to our own laws, customs, and beliefs. Recent archaeological discoveries at Clark Lake (referred to as “Mamee” in Cree), approximately 7 miles (11.5 km) downstream of TCNʼs community on Split Lake, provide evidence of our ancestors trading with other tribes across North America before first contact with Europeans. Before first contact, our ancestors lived in harmony with the land and had power and authority to govern their own lives. Our homeland ecosystem – the Churchill and Nelson Rivers, the rich boreal forest fed by the rivers, and the bountiful Hudson Bay lowlands and coastline - sustained us both physically and culturally. Our people were completely self-reliant and self-sustaining. For some 250 years after first European contact our land continued to support us as we blended new technology and values with our traditional ways. With the passage of time, however, outsiders eventually gained control of our land and authority over our lives. Our history throughout the better part of the last century – a history shared by all First Nation peoples in Canada – is a sad story of dispossession, imposed changes, neglect, poverty and underdevelopment at the hands of governments and outsiders. For example, governments forced us, a people who had always lived throughout our vast traditional territory, into a static and alien existence on our Reserve. Our Environmental Evaluation Report provides a description of many other such changes that were imposed on us. For all of our history, the most significant changes to our way of life are a result of hydroelectric developments in northern Manitoba. Hydroelectric development of our waterways began in 1957 with the construction of the Kelsey Generating Station on the Nelson River where it empties into Split Lake in the south of the Split Lake Resource Management Area. Hydroelectric development continued in the 1970s with the Churchill River Diversion and Lake Winnipeg Regulation. New generating stations at Kettle, Long Spruce, and Limestone further flooded and altered our lands and rivers. They had a devastating effect on our customs, practices and traditions. The Churchill River Diversion and Lake Winnipeg Regulation had a great impact on us. In particular, the Churchill River Diversion greatly increased the flow of water and sediment into Split Lake, in order to power the new planned generating stations downstream. The adverse effects were beyond the worst fears of our people. The natural Nelson River pattern of higher flows in the spring and summer with declining and low flows in the fall and winter was reversed. Flooding of our lands and erosion of the shoreline occurred, turning our waterways to mud. In winter our traditional ʻhighwaysʼ on the ice became dangerous and often unusable. There was damage to property and loss of homes. Wildlife patterns and habits we knew and depended upon changed. Mercury contaminated the fish. Manitoba Hydro development was the final step in removing forever our opportunity to fully support and sustain ourselves in our traditional ways. Our lands and waters were so changed by these projects, that it was as if weʼd been uprooted and moved to some distant foreign place. To give an idea of the scale of these projects, today, about 75% of the hydroelectricity generated within Manitoba is generated within our Split Lake Resource Management Area, due to the regulation of Lake Winnipeg, the diversion of the Churchill River into the Nelson, and the construction of the Kelsey, Kettle, Long Spruce and Limestone generating stations. The value of these projects to Manitobans has been enormous. But for a very long time, all we experienced was the impacts. And much of this hydroelectric development was imposed on us with little or no consultation. Fifty-seven years ago, our grandfathers and grandmothers looked south-west from their homes in Split Lake and saw smoke rising in the distance. That smoke, from the construction camp for the Kelsey Generating Station, was our first indication that Kelsey was being built. No consultations preceded the decision to build Kelsey despite how close is it to our community and how it imposed unwelcome and disruptive changes on our culture and way of life. In order to begin addressing concern over hydroelectric development projects, TCN, along with four other affected First Nations formed the Northern Flood Committee in 1974. The NFC was able to bring Hydro, Manitoba and Canada to the table to begin negotiations concerning the impacts of the hydroelectric projects on our First Nationsʼ lands, livelihood and culture. The negotiations resulted in the signing of the Northern Flood Agreement (the NFA) in 1978 by Hydro, Manitoba, Canada, and the NFC in December 1977, and ratified by Members of the five NFC Bands in March 1978. The NFA was a difficult agreement to negotiate because of government and Hydro reluctance. However, through collective determination and our Eldersʼ wisdom, the other Parties were forced to recognize our peoplesʼ historic and interdependent relationship with our homeland ecosystem. Our efforts resulted in a legal framework to give us a voice with respect to future Hydro developments. This was a monumental accomplishment. In addition to being difficult to negotiate, the NFA proved an equally difficult agreement to implement largely because of a lack of understanding by outsiders of the enormous adjustments and damages imposed on our people. For many years, little positive action was taken toward implementing the NFA. In 1990, after two years of negotiations between the Northern Flood Committee, Canada, Manitoba and Hydro to implement the NFA, negotiations broke down. At that point, TCN took the far-sighted, controversial and courageous decision to proceed alone with negotiations to implement key features of the NFA with Hydro, Manitoba and Canada. The other affected Cree Nations chose their own path. Negotiations resulted in TCNʼs 1992 NFA Implementation Agreement (the 1992 Agreement) that brought benefits to TCN Members. It resulted in major changes in the relationship between TCN and Hydro, and gradual improvements in understanding within Hydro about how we experience impacts. The 1992 Agreement also contains provisions protecting TCNʼs rights and interests in relation to any future hydroelectric development and formal recognition of TCNʼs governance and authority. It formally recognized the Split Lake Resource Management Area and provided for the co- management of the resources by Manitoba and TCN through the establishment of the Split Lake Resource Management Board. From 1992, TCN and Hydro explored various development options downstream in the Birthday and Gull Rapids areas. Hydro suggested in 1996 that TCN and Hydro continue consultations about the scope and timing of a potential development of Gull Rapids, which, at that time, was contemplated to be 20 to 25 years away. The Cree word for Gull, is Keeyask. In recognition of the fact that TCN and Hydro shared vital interests in the waters of the Nelson River basin, TCN Chief and Council wrote to the President of Hydro in June 1998, recommending that the best way to move forward at Keeyask would be to negotiate the terms of a business partnership between us, as co-proponents of such future development. Our leaders were determined that if we couldnʼt achieve partnership status for the project, then we would oppose any future development with every means at our disposal. But Hydro responded favourably to our proposal and negotiations began towards an Agreement in Principle. The Agreement in Principle was signed between TCN and Hydro in October 2000 to govern partnership negotiations. Itʼs worth noting that the idea of First Nation ownership in an infrastructure project of this magnitude was very new for such projects in Canada at the time it was proposed by TCN. TCN took steps to include neighbouring First Nations in the Keeyask partnership arrangements. In May 2001, TCN and War Lake formed the Cree Nation Partners. TCN also invited York Factory First Nation and Fox Lake Cree Nation to sign, but they declined and set out to independently negotiate arrangements with Manitoba Hydro.