the Canadian states, Quebec and Newfoundland, have declared that plans for a huge hydro-electric project in the Churchill Falls region of Labrador would be delayed to meet the demand of Canadian natives. The natives have stalled negotiations on the project since March 1998. They are demanding that they be involved in the decision-making process.

Natives in Quebec and the Newfoundland region of Labrador have vowed to launch an international campaign and to take their fight to the courts to stop the project from going ahead without their approval. The Churchill Falls project would partly divert one river to a reservoir and allow new turbines to be added. The environmental impact on their lands, specifically the flooding of large areas, has enraged the natives, who say they were not compensated for the flooding of their ancestral lands by the original project in the early 1970s.