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Rape, racism linked to hydro development ‘an open wound:’ Manitoba chief

Rape, racism linked to hydro development ‘an open wound:’ Manitoba chief
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Rape, racism linked to hydro development ‘an open wound:’ Manitoba chief

WINNIPEG — The chief of a northern Manitoba First Nation says a report into the development of the hydro-electric industry decades ago only touches the surface when it describes allegations of sexual violence, racism and environmental degradation.

“Our experience is an open wound. The release of the report has triggered many emotions,” Chief Walter Spence of the Fox Lake Cree Nation said in a statement Wednesday.

“This affects us all … I wonder if anyone is listening. We have never been silent and we have only missed someone to listen.”

Manitoba’s arms-length Clean Environment Commission held hearings earlier this year into the environmental and social effects of energy development between the 1950s and 1980s. The commission released its report on Tuesday, though it was dated May 2018.

In it, the commission said it heard the arrival of a largely male construction workforce led to the sexual abuse of Indigenous women.

“People spoke of construction workers getting them inebriated and then taking advantage of them. People spoke of witnessing rape and being unable to interfere,” the report said.

Some community members described how institutions — particularly the RCMP — meant to protect people at times failed to take local complaints seriously.

The commission said it heard from people who recounted being called “dirty Indians” and “wagon burners” at school as the population of the town of Gillam quickly ballooned from a few hundred to thousands.