Tim Fontaine
APTN National News
WINNIPEG – Manitoba’s premier will travel to a Cree community and personally deliver a letter of apology for harms caused by the province’s hydro system, according to a press release from Chief Catherine Merrick.
In the release, Chief Merrick also says the months-long occupation of the Jenpeg Generating Station will end. People from her community had taken over the grounds of the dam in Sept., angry over what they say are decades of abuses and broken promises by Manitoba Hydro, the Crown utility responsible for the dam and the province.
Now an agreement has been reached to begin talks that the Pimicikamak hope will “reset the relationship between the parties.” Those talks will include environmental clean up from damages caused by the dam – which was completed in 1979 – and profit sharing.
A mediator, retired Supreme Court Justice Frank Iaccobucci, has already been appointed to oversee the process.
No date was given for the premier’s apologetic visit to Pimicikamak territory and APTN received no response from our request for clarification from his office.
