Churchill Board of Inquiry Report

Excerpt from the Introduction, Page iii:

"The Churchill River Board of Inquiry was appointed in January of 1977 to make recommendations as to whether the Wintego hydro-electric project proposed by the Saskatchewan Power Corporation for the Churchill River in northern Saskatchewan should proceed.

A comprehensive course of action was laid out for the Board in terms of Reference (see next section) for the Inquiry. -

The Board conduced its own information and research programs, beginning in April of 1977 and continuing to March of 1978, and conducted 23 days of public hearings, from late November 1977 to early March 1978.

In all 244 briefs were received by the Board, 92 of which were received by mail, and the remainder of which were presented at hearings. Of the total, five expressed no opinion about the dam proposal but were provided to the Board as information, 14 were in support of the project, and the remaining 225, or approximately 92%, were opposed to the project. The actual number of people represented by the briefs is difficult to ascertain, but it is far in excess of the actual number of submissions. Many were presented on behalf of groups and organizations. A list of submissions and participants is appended to this report. 

In the following material dealing with the recommendations and outlining the reasons for them, we deal first with the project, second with the people and the environment of the impact area, which are the most significant aspects of the decision-making process, and last with the broader energy issues arising out of the Inquiry." (iii).