Read Full Letter Here

April 13, 2021 O-pipin-na-piwin Cree Nation & Tataskweyak Cree Nation released an open letter to Manitoba Hydro customers calling on us to raise our collective voices alongside theirs.

In the mid-1970s, Manitoba Hydro built the Churchill River Diversion project in our home territories in northern Manitoba. They poured cement in the water, they blasted a nine-km channel through the forest, and they forcibly relocated an entire community.

The massive project diverts 85 percent of the flow of the second largest river in Manitoba. It also floods 675 square kilometres of boreal forest and largely dries up a 415-km stretch of the Churchill River (see map and list of impacts below).

The ecological, economic and cultural damage is severe, ongoing and heartbreaking. Words can never express the loss and grief our communities have endured and continue to endure.

The Diversion was built without our consent and against our wishes. The Manitoba Government issued a licence for the project in violation of our best interests. We had no say.

Read the full letter here.

Or download file below.