È-nakàskàkowaàhk (a step back) : Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation and the Waskwatim Project

I agree with the Honourable Eric Robin- that in signing the treaties the First Nations would son who said to the Manitoba legislative assembly not be expected to give up their hunting way of that the Northern Flood Agreement is a treaty life, that the Crown would respect their cultural signed by Manitoba Hydro, the Governments of and economic right to live as they had lived ‘for as Manitoba and Ca [...] Indeed, given the standards of was as key a promise to the First Nations as the assessment established by the Supreme Court of land surrender clause was to the Crown. [...] So-called Certainly none of the signatories, Crown or First implementation agreements signed in the 1990s, Nation, imagined that the ‘tracts’ that might that in fact serve to extinguish rights promised be required by the Crown might come to be so in the NFA, are in my view unconstitutional and large as to destroy the whole basis of the hunting will not stand the court challenges that they will eco [...] Had that been the case Manitoba Hydro matters are not a part of the agreement, section might today be forced to offer these communities 14 provides for interest on 5 percent of “eligible deals that compare at least minimally to the “Peace capital costs incurred each year in the construc- of the Brave” agreement recently signed in Que- tion of the Project Transmission Facilities” to be bec. [...] It does not to-nation agreement in the manner of the “Peace contemplate any significant support for the hunt- of the Brave” between the Crees of Quebec and the ing way of life and in fact moves in a direction that Government of Quebec and contains no such sense diminishes the possibility of a future for northern of vision.