Arm of iron between Ottawa and Ekuanitshit

Photo special collaboration, Emy-Jane Déry
Jean-Charles Pietacho

QMI agency

Friday, 14 July 2017 10:17

UPDATE
Friday, 14 July 2017 10:17

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EKUANITSHIT – Ekuanitshit, innu community of the regional county municipality (MRC) of Minganie, in the Côte-Nord, is engaged in a game of arm-wrestling with Ottawa.

The notice sent by the band council to the minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Dominic LeBlanc, who has been pushed to the back of the hand, chief Jean-Charles Pietacho now intends to carry the case to the courts.

The band Council wants to force the federal government to reverse its decision to allow Hydrocarbon Anticosti to collect 30 million litres of water in three salmon rivers in order to proceed to drilling by hydraulic fracturing.

The chief innu believes that this practice could cause a lot of damage to the ecosystem. “Already, the state of the salmon rivers is at its lowest. The lawyers working on the file to file an action against the federal government to the court. […] We had 30 days to respond to the result of their decision. It is inside of 30 days, and I was hoping for a positive response to our request. All the more that this project of drilling with fracturing is not desired, neither by the Innu, or by the region, or even by the prime minister of Quebec.”