I am a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, speaking for other mothers and grandmothers and sisters and daughters who may not have the opportunity to speak these truths to power. I am a Newfoundlander and Labradorian by heredity as well as by choice, a writer and activist and a veteran of many struggles, a few of which we’ve won. This one may be winnable too, if those in charge will listen and learn from all of us, instead of snowing us with the same-old same-old spoutings of their so-called “experts.” We do not want to simply sit on the sidelines and be graciously allowed to “ask questions” – we want our voices, our criticisms, our proposals, to be heard and incorporated into the making of the decisions and their implementation.
I have developed a severe allergy to the Trumpian word “deal.” In the world of Donald Trump, everything is a business, to be defined and decided in business terms. Everything is a “deal” – a good deal, a bad deal, a better deal, and so on. The term “deal” has been central to this public debate so far, and has succeeded in framing the whole issue almost exclusively in terms of the money involved. In almost the entire public discussion, it all comes down to money – whose money, how much money, who pays, who receives, for how long, on what terms, and so forth.
But surely it bears mentioning that this is not just about the money. It is about the Churchill River, the land and waters that River flows through, and the present and future generations of people and other living creatures who inhabit those lands and waters. It is not just about what NL’s provincial treasury will or will not receive over the next fifty-plus years. It is about what will happen to the River itself, as global warming changes patterns of freezing and thawing, rainfall and drought, and as our children and grandchildren come to realize the consequences of ignoring the wisdom of the Indigenous traditions of respect and reciprocity with “all our relations.”
It is just not good enough to debate this outrageous MOU merely in terms of a “deal.” Yes, this plan would tie us all into a disgraceful surrender of our precious resources for decades to come; it gives Hydro Quebec the lion’s share of the money, and hands over to an outside corporation the decision-making power that rightfully belongs to the people of Labrador and Newfoundland. But the MOU is even worse than that. It ignores the centrality of the environment – the lands and waters upon which the very lives of future generations will depend. That is what must be stopped.