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AP Photo\/Joshua A. Bickel<\/p>\n
The Churchill River empties into the Hudson Bay near Churchill, Manitoba.<\/p>\n
After touring Southern Indian Lake in 2022, Wab Kinew \u2014 then opposition leader \u2014 referred in a statement to witnessing \u201cislands disappearing into the lake, shorelines eroding quickly, a landscape covered with debris, (and) fish spawning grounds lost\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
The prospect of CRD licence renewal opens the door to a new era. Our collective understanding of lakes, rivers and shorelines has evolved since the \u201970s. Plus, governments generally don\u2019t bulldoze Indigenous communities aside for the sake of \u201cprogress\u201d any more.<\/p>\n
Generational change is at hand.<\/p>\n
During a Clean Environment Commission hearing in 2015, David Cormie of Manitoba Hydro looked ahead to the licence renewal process. \u201cThe world around us is evolving and we are learning new things. Our social licence to continue to operate as if we were still back in the 1970s is changing, the standards are changing\u2026. And I think that\u2019s what is contemplated when it comes to (licence) renewal.\u201d<\/p>\n
That hearing considered Lake Winnipeg Regulation, the other cornerstone of Hydro\u2019s northern system. Its 50-year licence also expired recently.<\/p>\n
Cormie anticipated that leading up to 2026, Hydro \u201cwould be participating in an evaluation of all the options\u2026 We would want to strike a modern balance.\u201d<\/p>\n
None of this has happened.<\/p>\n
Despite 50 years notice, on Sept. 1, the government, as if caught off guard, issued a one-year \u201cshort term extension licence\u201d for CRD, as if nothing has changed since 1976. Business as usual.<\/p>\n
Note that legislation provides for interim licences (like a building permit), final licences (like an occupancy permit) \u2014 which are good for 50 years from project completion, at which point they come up for renewal \u2014 and \u201cshort term extension licences\u201d which can more or less be granted as the minster wishes.<\/p>\n
The actual process for licence renewal is a mystery. Two older projects that should have undergone licence renewal \u2014 Grand Rapids and Kelsey \u2014 have instead been granted successive short term extension licences since 2014 when their 50-year licences expired.<\/p>\n
Welcome to the \u201970s.<\/p>\n
Actually, it\u2019s worse. Legislation and oversight are so loose that Hydro operated CRD under an interim licence for 45 years. Worse still, since Hydro wanted more water than the interim licence allowed, government granted annual permission to increase flooding on Southern Indian Lake and increase the allowable annual fluctuation of the lake level from 0.6 metres to 1.37 metres.<\/p>\n
Over time, in this regulatory vacuum, the vibrant commercial fishery that made South Indian Lake self-reliant, collapsed from 400,000 kg annually to nothing.<\/p>\n
When the CRD licence was finally finalized in 2021, these licence \u201cdeviations,\u201d as they were called, were baked into the final licence, despite the explicit objection of O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation and Tataskweyak Cree Nation.<\/p>\n
In these pages, the chiefs of those two nations \u2014 Shirley Ducharme and Doreen Spence \u2014 said the original interim licence for CRD was \u201ca licence to destroy our lands\u201d and they noted that Hydro was requesting no changes to that licence, other than inclusion of their favoured \u201cdeviations.\u201d The company got their way.<\/p>\n
The chiefs noted that, \u201cthe diversion was built without our consent, and against our wishes.\u201d Then: \u201cWe would like to think times have changed since the 1970s. We\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n
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In 2022, Kinew said that if the NDP came to power they were \u201ccommitting\u201d to give \u201cHydro affected First Nations and the M\u00e9tis a meaningful say in the future decisions of Hydro.\u201d Referring to CRD licensing, he said the NDP would ensure that \u201cfuture operation of Hydro\u201d would be \u201cresponsive to the needs of these communities.\u201d<\/p>\n
The government will now consult, study and reassure. For 2021 licence finalization, consultations and studies resulted in no changes to the licence parameters. None, except that Manitoba removed a requirement to \u201cfully mitigate any effects of the altered levels and flows.\u201d<\/p>\n
Will studies and consultations be different this time (they have yet to start formal consultations)? What exactly will \u201cmeaningful say\u201d consist of for First Nations?<\/p>\n
A year from now, when Manitoba quietly issues another short term extension licence \u2014 because years of groundwork are required \u2014 will anything substantive have changed? We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n
Will Braun is a writer and farmer from Morden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Sept. 1, Manitoba Hydro\u2019s 50-year licence to divert 85 per cent of the flow of the second…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":891659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-891658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=891658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/891659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=891658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=891658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=891658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}