WEMOTACI – Five First Nations in Québec, the Innu of Pessamit, the Atikamekw of Wemotaci, and the Anishnabeg of Pikogan, Lac Simon and Kitcisakik – have joined the Innu Nation of Labrador to oppose Hydro-Quebec’s massive new power transmission corridor to the United States. In two separate briefs addressed to the Canada Energy Regulator (CER), the six Indigenous Nations expressed their opposition to the construction and operation, by Hydro-Québec, of a transmission line dedicated to the export of electricity to New England. The CER has the power to block the project if it does not comply with constitutional requirements. The First Nations and Innu “denounce the administrative strategies… to circumvent the framework provided by the Constitution Act of 1982, contravene its own Environment Quality Act, ignore the jurisprudence established by the Supreme Court, and flout Canada’s international commitments”.

The projects that Hydro-Québec has built on the lands of our First Nations have enabled Québec to industrialize and have provided the majority of its citizens with a better quality of life. However, the indicators of well-being for First Nations communities continue to be comparable to those of least developed countries – a reality that has created and sustained a system in which there are two classes of citizens. To add insult to injury, Hydro-Québec now expects to sell electricity produced on our lands to the United States, and to thereby improve the well-being of American citizens, without even thinking of compensating us for the damage it has caused to our ancestral lands since the beginning of the 20th century. This will not happen without our consent!