Lawyer Nancy Kleer, who has worked with the Innu for 30 years, said the Innu Nation was ready to negotiate a compensation deal with the distribution company. But she said the lawsuit will continue if no agreement is reached. Within 30 days of the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding, CFLCo had recalled the workers on the site. (Some work had already been completed at a time when agreements were imminent. Before the end of the year, the company also began to structure the final electricity contract on the basis of the Memorandum of Understanding. Until March 1967, CFLCo provided for a timetable that would result in an electricity contract until October 31 of the same year. In anticipation of this order, CFLCo launched a large and expensive construction program to meet Hydro-Québec`s requirement that the first amount of electricity be available in 1972. This has been problematic for two reasons. The Labrador Internal Border was established in 1927 by the Privy Council`s Justice Committee. The decision had been unpopular and very upset in Quebec, and the border remained a sensitive issue in the 1960s. Second, Quebec would not allow Labrador`s hydroelectricity to be transferred to markets in Ontario or the United States. Although provincial governments were not allowed to impede the trade of others, the Quebec government in the 1960s opposed the creation of a national electricity grid and argued that electricity generation and transmission were within provincial jurisdiction. In the decision released On Friday, the Supreme Court upheld two decisions made by the preliminary courts in favour of Hydro-Québec, with seven judges agreeing and only one, Justice Malcolm Rowe, a native of Newfoundland, disagrees.

One of the Smallwood government`s main ambitions was the development of Newfoundland`s natural resources and Labrador. In 1952 Smallwood approached a few major British bankers and industrialists, and the following year the British Newfoundland Corporation (BRINCO) was established. The Corporation obtained significant land and water rights in the province, including the hydroelectric potential of the upper Hamilton River, renamed churchill River in 1965. Smallwood`s reaction that two mills are “pretty cheap energy” shows that he had some assessment of the implications. However, this appears to have been the magnitude of an assessment of Newfoundland at the time. In any event, the contract was the fait accompli at the time of Smallwood`s disclosure and the newfoundland government`s agreement was not necessary for CFLCo to sign the contract.