The Muskrat Falls project, future source for so-called green electricity for Nova Scotia, is in fact a man-made environmental disaster that has few equals. Meanwhile journalists who report on protests are muzzled, and land defenders continue to be thrown in jail. Progressive politicians in Nova Scotia prefer to look the other way, as if it isn’t our business.
Beatrice Hunter is an Inuk land defender who refused to promise a judge that she would not engage in further protests at Muskrat Falls. Because of that refusal she is now incarcerated in an overpopulated men’s prison in St. John’s, more than 1,000 kilometers from home. Hunter said her decision to remain in prison and not comply with the order to stay away from Muskrat Falls is her way of resisting colonization in Labrador. Nova Scotia, via the Maritime Link, is among those colonizing powers.
We talk with Justin Brake about the serious criminal charges he faces. Brake was the only journalist to report from the indigenous-led occupation of Nalcor property in protest of the Muskrat Falls development. “This is is more than an attack on my right to be a journalist, this is an attack on all journalists everywhere.”
Justin Brake, the fearless Newfoundland and Labrador journalist for the TheIndependent.ca is facing jail for reporting on an occupation of Nalcor buildings at Muskrat Falls by indigenous people. Everybody should care, and Nova Scotians doubly so, because through the Maritime Link these things are a lot closer than they appear.
Land protectors in Labrador continue their resistance against Muskrat Falls. Just because the national and Nova Scotia press stopped reporting doesn’t mean all is quiet. We talk with Ossie Michelin about the Nova Scotia connection. Ossie’s 96-year old aunt was just served with a court order for visiting a protest site.
Should we make Muskrat Falls right, or should we just walk away from a mega project that is terribly destructive in so many ways? Sierra Club Atlantic and the Ecology Action Centre land on different sides of the discussion.
Once in a while the Nova Scotia Advocate likes to remind its readers that the Muskrat Falls development, of which Nova Scotia is a major beneficiary, is destroying the traditional ways of indigenous peoples and other marginalized people.
This weekend’s documentary follows a group of women from Nova Scotia as they travel to the site of the new hydroelectric installation at Muskrat Falls in Labrador. With Labradorian women as their guides, the Nova Scotians come to understand the heavy toll this dam is taking on the local environment, economy, and social fabric.
Nova Scotia stands to benefit from the Muskrat Falls power generating project through the Maritime Link. It’s time to have our voice heard on the severe damage the project threatens to inflict on the Inuit who live there.