INNU PROTEST MASSIVE HYDRO-DEVELOPMENT PROJECT
The Innu musical group, Uashau Stone, will perform in Toronto
Saturday, October 16.
Uashau Stone are from Maliotenam, a community on the eastern north
shore of the St. Lawrence River. Their performance, at the Bickford
Centre, 777 Bloor St. W. at 7 p.m., is a benefit for the Innu, who
are trying to stop a massive hydro-electric dam.
The Innu say the proposed $4.4-million Sainte Marguerite III dam
will have disastrous effects on the area's ecology and will also
harm the traditional Innu lifestyle.
"For food, the Innu must choose between mercury-poisoned fish and
junk food supplied by the welfare society," said Gilbert Pilot, a
spokesperson for the Innu group Coalition Pour Nitassinan, which is
organizing resistance to the dam.
In June, the Bureau d"audiences Publiques sur l'Environment
(Quebec's environmental review board) condemned the proposed dam as
"extremely risky and controversial." The report concluded that the
Moisie River, one of the waterways affected by the proposed dam,
"is the wrong place for an experiment of this magnitude."
Construction of the dam has already started even though the
environmental review board recommended the project be abandoned and
even though the provincial cabinet in Quebec has yet to announce a
decision about the fate of the dam.
"As far as the Coalition is concerned, Sainte Marguerite III is
another dam too many. We intend to oppose Hydro-Quebec, at the cost
of our lives if necessary," Pilot said.
For more information, please contact:
Charlie Huisken - Turtle Island Support Group - 966-8546 / 537-3520
Lorraine Land - Aboriginal Rights Coalition - 979-2443 / 461-5642
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