November 17, 2025
From: The Sovereign Tataskweyak Cree Nation
To: Our Neighbours, Governments, Industry Leaders, and Allies:
We, the sovereign Tataskweyak Cree Nation (TCN), reach out to you at a critical moment for our lands, our people, and our shared future. We write to remind you of our sovereignty and resilience in the face of continued environmental destruction due to climate change and the ongoing acts of governments and industry that threaten our lands and sideline our interests, our expertise, and rights.
Both Manitoba and Canada have already declared commitments to push ahead with major nation building trade- and resource-related infrastructure projects that impact our territories and the animals and land that we are responsible for (see attached map of TCN’s Resource Management Area below). The proposal of the “Canada Strong” federal budget naming the “Port of Churchill Plus” (including upgrading the Port of Churchill, expanded trade routes, and construction of an all-weather road, an upgraded rail line, and a new energy corridor), the recent passing of Bill C-5, and the establishment of the federal Major Projects Office designed to expedite approvals of nation building initiatives, are all key examples of typical colonial practices in action that have moved ahead without our input.
Further, in September of this year, Prime Minister Carney announced the establishment of the Indigenous Advisory Council for the new Major Projects Office. Once again TCN (and all Treaty 5 Nations) are excluded from this important table, while key initiatives like the “Port of Churchill Plus” continue to gain momentum. These projects promise to directly impact our sovereignty, our lands, our cultures and our ways of life. Yet we are forced to continually advocate on our own behalf to ensure that our sovereignty, our well-being, and our rights are respected.
We emphasize: TCN is not against all initiatives. However, no initiative can be legitimate unless our Nation is at the table as an equal partner with Canada — not as one of many stakeholders, but as a sovereign Nation with inherent rights.
In recent years, escalating threats have endangered our very existence. Wildfires continue to ravage our ancestral territory, destroying homes, forcing evacuations, and devastating the forests, wetlands, and wildlife habitats that sustain us, while separating us from our homes, families, livelihoods, and support systems. Hydroelectric projects (including related mercury contamination, shoreline erosion, and habitat destruction), mining activities, and now climate fuelled wildfires form a cumulative crisis that Parliament itself has recognized as evidence of environmental racism (Bill C-226). One of the most severe consequences is the ongoing collapse of sturgeon populations, especially due to the Churchill River Diversion (CRD). This sacred species is central to our identity, our culture, our diet and increasingly threatened food security, and our way of life — and its devastation is a stark example of the cost of decisions made without our consent.
We remind all citizens, governments, and industry of our November 2023 Assertion of Sovereignty Letter, in which we declared:
“Any future decisions that may impact our rights, resources, or ancestral lands must be made with our prior and informed consent.”
Yet today, projects are being advanced and foreign negotiations underway without our input. Current agreements — including the 1992 Split Lake Implementation Agreement (SLIA), which recognizes our governance and authority over our lands — are not being honoured. Some of the most critical matters remain before the courts, with active cases related to manipulation of water flows still ongoing. Ignoring these realities while advancing new projects contradicts the spirit and intent of reconciliation and undermines constitutional and international obligations. This repeats a long and damaging pattern including: the construction of the Kelsey Generating in the 1950s without notice or consent; the operation of the Churchill River Diversion and Lake Winnipeg Regulation from the 1970s to present causing irreversible harm; and a host of current provincial and federal activities that impact our land without our involvement or consent.
We are the original and current caretakers for our lands and our specific knowledge of how different activities impact our lands is something that is essential to understand the bigger picture. The basic point that we should also guide and benefit from activities undertaken on our lands is continually ignored when other governments and industry treat us as obstacles and advance projects without us. Each First Nation is unique. We are not interchangeable “stakeholders” but distinct Nations with our own governance, rights, and relationships to land and water. Any approach that treats First Nations collectively, rather than individually, repeats colonial errors.
We call on the Crown — the governments of Canada and Manitoba — to:
1. Immediately suspend any actions, negotiations, or legislative initiatives affecting TCN’s lands until meaningful consultation with our Nation has occurred.
2. Meet directly with TCN leadership to establish the terms of a renewed relationship based on respect for our sovereignty.
3. Honour obligations under Section 35 of the Constitution Act, Treaty 5, the SLIA, UNDRIP, and Bill C-226.
On behalf of the sovereign Tataskweyak Cree Nation and in the spirit of reconciliation and respect,
