The Independent – Innu in Labrador are suing Canada and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador over a financial agreement they say violates their rights as Indigenous people. Leaders from Sheshatshiu and Natuashish filed the lawsuit at the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador in St. John’s against the settler colonial governments over the recently announced Muskrat Falls rate mitigation plan.
The litigation is “based on the fact that Canada and the Province took direct, deliberate and decisive action to extinguish the financial benefits that the Innu people were promised in return for their consent that Muskrat Falls could be built,” a news release from Innu Nation issued Tuesday afternoon explains.
Together the Innu Nation, Sheshatshiu Innu First Nation, and Mushuau Innu First Nation say the federal and provincial governments “violated their duties to the Innu” as outlined in the Lower Churchill Impacts and Benefits Agreement (IBA) and the Agreement-in-Principle (AIP) that effectively paved the way for the construction of the controversial Muskrat Falls hydro project.
The plaintiffs allege Canada and Newfoundland and Labrador’s new Muskrat Falls deal “breaches the Crown’s fiduciary duties to the Innu, breaches the duty to consult and accommodate, and breaches the honor of the Crown.”
In their statement of claim the Innu say they consented to the Lower Churchill Projects based on the agreed financial benefits they would receive in exchange for permitting hydroelectric development on the unceded lands where they have asserted Aboriginal rights and title.
The claim also states the province “promised that Innu financial interests would be held harmless throughout the Rate Mitigation Negotiations,” and that Premier Andrew Furey “specifically and explicitly confirmed that Innu Nation would be consulted before any rate mitigation agreement was announced.”
The Innu are seeking a declaration from the courts that the provincial and federal governments have a fiduciary obligation to disclose to Innu Nation any details of the rate mitigation negotiations that would affect the amount and timing of benefits the Innu would receive via the Lower Churchill IBA. They also want a declaration that the governments have a duty to consult the Innu, and that the province has a legal obligation to the Innu “to avoid self dealing and other conflicts of interest in allocating financial benefits received from Canada with respect to the Rate Mitigation Negotiations.”
On the latter point, the court filing says that Canada’s diversion of revenues from the Hibernia offshore oil project toward rate mitigation for Muskrat Falls—without formalizing this part of the deal in any final agreement—would be “an unjustifiable attempt to exclude [the Innu] from a share of those revenues and an example of self-dealing” by the province. The Innu want compensation for the colonial governments’ breaches of their legal obligations of an amount to be determined at trial. They are also asking the court for an injunction to prohibit Canada and the province from finalizing a rate mitigation deal until these issues are resolved.