Another Manitoba First Nation claims discrimination at hands of Hydro workers

The bombshellreports of sexual violence and discrimination allegedly perpetrated by Manitoba Hydro staffin a northern First Nation decades ago sounds familiar toanothercommunity where people say they were plunged into chaos by the utility's development.

Gerald McKaysays his community ofMisipawistik Cree Nation, near Grand Rapids, Man.,was stripped of its native language,itspeople were discriminated against and some were forced to walk in pairs overnight over fears for their safetyafter Hydro workers arrived inthe northern community in the 1960s.

His allegations come on the heels of a damning report released last week by theClean Environment Commission, an arm's-length provincial agency,revealingclaims of sexual abuse and discrimination atFox Lake Cree Nation.

Misipawistik Cree Nation, 400 kilometres north of Winnipeg, was forever changedby the thousands of workers who arrived to builda dam, McKaysaid.

The community was isolated from the outside worlduntil a new road was built as development began, he said. Their community which a couple hundred called home then has never recovered, he said.

"Within a few months there were several thousand peoplehere and so we became a minority in our own community here and English was the dominant language," said McKay, who was then only five years old and spoke Cree. "When we started school, we had to learn English."

I heard those ladies talking about the flashers and the peeping Toms.-GeraldMcKay

McKaysaid he and other kids could no longer roam free to play.

"When all these strangers started coming in, our boundaries tightened. We couldn't leave the yard sometimes when there was talk of strangers in the bush."

Some of the people who lingered outside were homeless. They were among the thousands who soughtwork during the developmentboom, but missed out on employment.

Danger outside

"We couldn't go anywhere out of sightand there were bad people there. There were flashers," he said. "I heard those ladies talking about the flashers and the peeping Toms."

Women were grabbed, alcohol flowed liberally andfights were commonplace, he said. Students were punished for speaking their native tongue, while theirfamiliesstruggled to live off the land oncethey needed licences to hunt and fish, he said.

Manitoba Hydro did not respond Monday to a request for comment onthe allegations.

McKaysaid he never rodeabus to school, but he watched whilea half-empty Hydro busdrove past him.

"When the local guys that were working for Hydro would drive that bus, they would come around the other way so they wouldn't have to go past all the kids that were walking."

The far-reaching effects of hiscommunity's unwanted transformation caused problems inMcKay's family.

Anxiety persists

"I noticed a big change in my mother," he said. "Before things had been good. There was no trouble, there was no commotion. Itwas all relaxed. When this project started, my mother's personality changed. She became irritable, awake all night, and not sleeping."

McKaycontinues to strugglewith anxiety.

Although Manitoba Hydro offered compensation to the communityyears ago to quell continued opposition to the dam, he wants the utility to invest in the First Nationthey left behind while reaping the revenues.

"When you go into a community andyou kill their namesake, the Grand Rapids, and then you leave us with nothing, which is what the rapidsis now there's no more rapids," he said.

"They should be investing in the community. We have high unemployment here. There's a lot of problems, a lot of poverty, and so we're sitting here with this big dam that's killed our fishing."

Grand Rapids Mayor Robert Buck believes the accounts fromMcKay and others need to be shared.

"There is a story here to tell and the peopleneed to tell of their experience," he said.

Buck was a child whenHydro's workers arrived. They weren't afflicted byunemploymentor alcoholism in those days.

"The community was changing. Theybrought in a hotel,and that basically went from morning tillnight," he said."In some areas, it was like a Wild West town."

He hopes the survivors are somehow offeredclosure.