The party says there's 'strong evidence' Nalcor unnecessary, expensive
Amid a long list of promises ahead of the May 16 election, the New Democrats pledged to save Newfoundland and Labrador money in its debt-laden Muskrat Falls era — by dismantling the very Crown corporation responsible for the project.
NDP Leader Alison Coffin, who released the party's platform this week, said the extra layers of management within Nalcor Energy are costly and unnecessary, and proposed a government department could handle those responsibilities at a lower cost to the taxpayer.
At the very least, "it's certainly going to give us a good opportunity to look at the exorbitant fee or administration salaries there," Coffin told CBC's On the Go.
"We believe that there really is only a need for one level of administration, and we want to see that return."
Nalcor, formed in 2007, manages several operations, including the Churchill Falls hydro project, N.L. Hydro, and three oil and gas fields offshore.
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"Hunter’s imprisonment lays bare the reality of what is unfolding in Labrador. The prosecution of land protectors is not about justice. It is about colonialism, about rich white settlers profiting off of Indigenous land.
Beatrice Hunter is a Labrador Inuit woman who has been remanded into custody at the maximum security prison, HMP in St. John's, NL for refusing to agree to a judge's condition to stay away from the site of the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project in Labrador, which is being built by Nalcor Energy.
Ms. Hunter is facing civil and criminal charges for taking part in the occupation of the Muskrat Falls workers camp site back in Oct of 2016.
Legal representation has now been retained and Beatrice needs financial support so that she can continue to fight, and would very much appreciate your support.
Thanks to everyone for supporting this cause.
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To learn more of Beatrice's story, and the fight her and many others in Labrador are facing, you can read more from The Independent's website.
http://theindependent.ca/2017/06/03/i-choose-not-to-be-assimilated-and-oppressed-beatrice-hunter/
http://theindependent.ca/2017/06/01/free-beatrice-hunter/
"Hunter’s imprisonment lays bare the reality of what is unfolding in Labrador. The prosecution of land protectors is not about justice. It is about colonialism, about rich white settlers profiting off of Indigenous land.
Opposition to Muskrat Falls has become more than simply a political opinion. Thanks to the aggressive over-reach of Nalcor and the justice system, opposition to Muskrat Falls has become a civil rights movement, a clear and defining moment in the maturing of this province. Beatrice Hunter is a political prisoner — a prisoner of conscience."
--Hans Rollman, The Independent
"We expect the administration of justice in this province to respect the nation-to-nation relationship with Indigenous peoples and to live up to promises around reconciliation. "It can, and must, do better."
The NunatuKavut Community Council (NCC) is condemning the arrest of three Inuit protesters and their detention at Her Majesty's Penitentiary.
Jim Learning, Eldred Davis and Marjorie Flowers were taken into custody on July 21, after refusing to obey a court injunction ordering them not to interfere with the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project.
Time for arrests, says frustrated judge to Muskrat Falls protesters
NCC President Todd Russell issued a statement Monday afternoon, calling on Andrew Parsons, the province's attorney general and justice minister, to take action.
According to Russell, the three protesters were asserting their right to free speech and peaceful assembly.
"NCC calls for the immediate release of Jim, Eldred and Marjorie," Russell wrote. "We also demand that the Attorney General of Newfoundland and Labrador, who is responsible for the administration of justice in this province, do his job."
Province, federal government and Nalcor all have a hand in the incarceration of the Inuk grandmother and land protector, says Amnesty spokesperson.
Amnesty International Canada says it is investigating the incarceration of Beatrice Hunter, the Inuk grandmother and land protector who has spent nine days behind bars after refusing to promise a Supreme Court N.L. judge that she would not go near the Muskrat Falls site in Central Labrador.
On Tuesday Craig Benjamin, Amnesty’s Campaigner for the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples, told The Independent he has written to the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador asking for an explanation of the situation and for the province to lay out its options moving forward in dealing with Hunter’s incarceration, which has begun to spark ire across Canada.
Though the internationally respected human rights organization hasn’t issued an official statement, Benjamin said certain conclusions can be drawn from the current situation and the six-year history of Indigenous resistance to Muskrat Falls.
Benjamin noted the “very actions” for which Hunter and others are being brought before the courts were actions that were “responding to the failure of the province and the federal government to uphold their obligations.”
Looking back at the process through which Muskrat Falls was sanctioned, and then developed against the will of local Indigenous communities, he said “from a human rights perspective it was quite clear to us that the province and the federal government had really failed in their obligations to protect the health of downstream Inuit communities.
“In relation to their very particular obligation to the rights of Indigenous people the process was profoundly flawed up to the point of the protests last year for not addressing people’s concerns.”
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Inuk grandmother and land protector speaks out from Her Majesty’s Penitentiary.
Beatrice Hunter, the Inuk grandmother and land protector who was incarcerated this week after refusing to promise a judge she would not go near the Muskrat Falls project site, says she wants to return home but cannot promise to obey the court order she says is at odds with ensuring her family and community’s safety and well-being.
In a phone interview with The Independent Friday from Her Majesty’s Penitentiary in St. John’s, Hunter said she wants to be back with her family in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, but that she feels her best option at fighting for their safety is to continue resisting Muskrat Falls. Part of that, she says, is to refuse demands that she stays away from the project’s site.
Hunter faces civil and criminal charges for her role in the Indigenous-led occupation of the Muskrat Falls workers’ camp last fall.
On Monday she appeared before Supreme Court of N.L. Justice George Murphy after disobeying a court order and recognizance to stay more than one kilometre away from the site. On May 22, Hunter and others protested outside the project’s main gate alongside the Trans Labrador Highway after the entire community of Mud Lake was evacuated due to flooding.
Many, including residents of Mud Lake who are launching a class action lawsuit against Nalcor Energy, the crown corporation running the project, suspect the flood was caused by the Muskrat Falls facilities.
When Murphy asked Hunter if she would stay away from the site, Hunter said she couldn’t agree. She also told the judge she will be representing herself and pleading not-guilty to the charges of breaking a court injunction and mischief in excess of $5,000.
“I felt like I was being bullied into a corner because of what I believe,” she explained over the phone Friday. “I felt pressured in a corner and I was like, ‘No, you can’t do this! You can’t tell me where I can go and where I can’t go! I haven’t done anything wrong. I am a law-abiding citizen.”
Thanks to the aggressive over-reach of Nalcor and the justice system, opposition to Muskrat Falls has become a civil rights movement, a clear and defining moment in the maturing of this province.
Let us consider the contrast between Premier Dwight Ball and Indigenous Labrador Land Protector Beatrice Hunter.
Dwight Ball is a man who goes to considerable semantic contortions in an effort to explain to other people what he will do. And he enjoys a position of power as premier of this province.
Beatrice Hunter, on the other hand, explained to a judge on Monday, in the simplest and most straight-forward of terms, what she would not do.
And now she is in jail for it.
The blunt courage of this Inuk woman contrasts sharply with the glib and awkward ambiguity of the premier. But so does the price she has paid, which is entirely disproportionate to the circumstances.
After the flooding of Mud Lake earlier this month—which many in Labrador have attributed to Nalcor’s operations at Muskrat Falls—she and other land protectors returned to the main gate of the Muskrat Falls site to protest the project and defend themselves from the harm they say it is doing to their lives, land and communities.
On Monday, some of those courageous civil rights defenders were summoned to court to answer to their violation of Nalcor’s injunction. They were asked to promise they would not do it again.
Hunter refused.
It has often been said by civil rights defenders that a refusal is the most powerful weapon anyone has. Refusal lies at the core of peaceful civil protest, whose advocates say it is not a violation of justice but in fact a call for justice where it is being denied, often at the behest of power or wealth.
Inuit grandmother jailed after refusing to stay away from Muskrat Falls
Martin Luther King Jr. put it in words that are most appropriate to this case: “An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.”
Refusal, in Hunter’s case, led the judge to send this principled mother and grandmother to jail.
A disproportionate, politically-motivated punishment
People are kept behind bars when they are a threat. So it bears asking: Who feels threatened by Hunter?
The notion that a lone Inuk woman could be a physical threat to anyone is patently ludicrous.
Can one woman stop all the hundreds of workers, thousands of tonnes of heavy equipment, billions of dollars of transnational capital wrapped up in Muskrat Falls? Certainly not by physical brute force.
If Hunter is a threat, it is only to those who fear her words and symbolic actions could provoke political change. She is a threat to those who fear her words and her courage could sway opinions.
If Nalcor is afraid of Hunter, it’s because they’re afraid her voice and her ideas could spark change.
Beatrice Hunter is not a threat. She is a political prisoner.
'There's only so long people can be suppressed until you have to do something about it,' says Inuk woman
Labrador's Beatrice Hunter is speaking out from behind bars in a wide-ranging interview and detailing her experiences at an almost all-male prison, being "bullied" by the judge who ordered her into custody, blasting "British colonial" laws and vowing to continue to "stand up to Nalcor."
Not right that Beatrice Hunter locked up in HMP, say supporters
'She's a hero': Group holds vigil for Muskrat Falls protester behind bars
Muskrat Falls opponent in custody, protesters block court vehicle
"I'm fighting for my rights," Hunter told CBC's Ted Blades, host of On The Go, inside Her Majesty's Penitentiary on Tuesday.
"It's not easy. Just because you believe in something, you shouldn't be locked up for it."
Hunter was transferred from Happy Valley-Goose Bay to HMP last week, after she refused to promise to stay away from the Muskrat Falls construction site — a condition imposed on her after a previous protest at the site. She ended up at HMP because the women's correctional facility in Clarenville is at capacity.
