Historic Saugeen Métis Sign Nuclear Protocol – First of Its Kind in Canada

SOUTHAMPTON, ON, March 6 – The Historic Saugeen Métis, located at the mouth of the Saugeen River since the early 1800s, announces with great pleasure the historic signing of a Métis Engagement Protocol with Bruce Power, Kincardine, on its New Nuclear Build Project. The agreement will enable the Historic Saugeen Métis to inform and engage the rights-bearing Métis community about the Project, while ensuring that the local Métis are able to work closely with Bruce Power to minimize any potential environmental impact on Métis interests, rights, and way of life.This Protocol represents a significant milestone in Historic Saugeen Métis’ ongoing efforts to ensure that the Crown’s duty to consult and accommodate the Historic Saugeen community is being fulfilled. Through the Protocol, its Energy Consultation Committee will ensure that the Historic Saugeen community is consulted throughout the Project. Historic Saugeen Métis will have a say on projects planned for the very lands their ancestors relied on for generations.

Bruce Power recognizes that local Métis, represented by the Historic Saugeen Métis, assert aboriginal communal rights as a Historic Métis community according to the Supreme Court decision R. v. Powley.

The Métis community is committed to working with provincial and federal governments, as well as industry, on current projects that occur within the Historic Saugeen Métis traditional territory.

The Historic Saugeen Métis are located at the mouth of the Saugeen River, Southampton, Ontario. The Historic Saugeen Métis families traded from the early 1800s along the eastern shoreline of Lake Huron proper, up the Bruce Peninsula, and across to the Killarney region of Lake Huron’s North Shore.

A formal signing will take place soon.

For further information: Historic Saugeen Métis, saugeenmetis@bmts.com, Box 1492, Southampton, Ontario, N0H 2L0, (519) 483-4000, http://historicsaugeen.googlepages.com/home