Norway House files suit against Hydro, governments over Lake Winnipeg

Norway House Cree Nation is suing Manitoba Hydro and the provincial and federal governments over how the public utility manipulates the level of Lake Winnipeg.

It’s the latest litigation launched by a First Nation in relation to Hydro’s regulation of the outflow of the lake into the Nelson River, which it has done since the mid-1970s.

Norway House filed its claim in the Court of King’s Bench on Thursday. It alleges Hydro and the Manitoba government have misrepresented the severity and scope of the adverse effects to the community caused by the regulation operation and the construction of a channel from Lake Winnipeg to Playgreen Lake.

The community, which is about 460 kilometres north of Winnipeg, near the northern shore of Lake Winnipeg, hired engineering firm DHI Water and Environments Inc. to conduct a scientific assessment of the effects of the regulation project.

“That assessment, received in June 2025, revealed that the damage caused by the project was significantly more severe than Manitoba Hydro had consistently represented and that the impacts are continuing to worsen,” reads the claim.

The study found that the majority of the sediment and debris that flows into Playgreen Lake comes through the constructed “2-mile” channel with Lake Winnipeg. That sediment, the community argues, has devastated the fish habitat of Playgreen Lake. As a result most commercial fishers from the community have chosen to harvest from Lake Winnipeg instead.

“I am bound and determined to get what is rightfully ours, and this has nothing to do with money,” Norway House Chief Larson Anderson said on Friday.

The chief said the goal of the lawsuit is to force the governments and Hydro to armour the shorelines of the channel and of the lakes to prevent erosion and to remove millions of tonnes of sediment that have flowed into Playgreen Lake since the regulation project began, “so we can continue to fish on our lakes and so we can continue to live off our resources.”

If that’s done, Anderson said, “we’ll leave everybody alone.”

There are no plans to reach a settlement agreement.

“The plan is to push this to trial… We have fresh evidence,” said Norway House lawyer, Dustin Seguin, who’s a member of the Cree Nation. “We have enough to show the misconduct of Mantoba Hydro, based on agreements where their conduct was unforeseen.”

The claim alleges the project and the channel have caused “significant harm” to the community’s way of life and have infringed upon its Aboriginal and Treaty rights.

The federal government, it argues, failed to exercise its obligations to safeguard Norway House’s interests from those harms, particularly following the construction of the channel.

The regulation project has fundamentally altered Playgreen Lake and other waterways and land used by Norway House, the claim alleges. That has resulted in progressively worsening effects on fishing, hunting, trapping, drinking water, travel and cultural uses of the natural environment.

The project was approved and put into operation before the development of modern Indigenous rights and environment laws and legal theory, but, the claim argues, the law now requires meaningful consideration of Norway House’s rights for the project to continue to operate and be regulated.

The lawsuit asks the court to declare that the community’s rights have been infringed upon, that the community be consulted on the project for licensing and decision-making purposes, and that Hydro and the province install monitoring technology and conduct studies on the effects of the project.

The chief said an agreement in relation to flood damages was negotiated with Hydro and the provincial and federal governments in 1997, but the problems have continued unabated.

“We are still facing even more damage, even more issues, and they’re 100 per cent the fault of Manitoba Hydro,” the chief said.

“We’ve seen the destruction of our fish, which we… relied on for our survival. You know, we northern people, we don’t get the kind of money that many southern communities and cities receive. So we rely on our wild food, in particular, our fish, (for) our livelihood.”

Hydro spokesman Peter Chura said the regulation of Lake Winnipeg is fundamental to reliably supplying affordable electricity to the province.

“Manitoba Hydro conducts all its operations within the requirements of its licenses, permits, and the legal and regulatory regimes within which Manitoba Hydro operates,” Chura said on Friday.

The spokesman said the Crown corporation takes Norway House’s claim “very seriously and will participate fully in the legal proceedings,” but declined to comment on the specifics of the lawsuit.

Licences for the regulation project come up for renewal in August and several First Nations have filed court claims over alleged damages. Hydro and the governments have denied wrongdoing in response to some of the claims.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca