Construction is now underway on Manitoba’s $4.6 billion Bipole III transmission line project and one First Nations community is not pleased with the construction.
Bipole III will be 1,384 kilometres long, and will start from the Keewatinohk Converter Station near Gillam and end at the Riel Converter station near Springfield.
Chief Michael Constant of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation (OCN) stated in a May 7 press release that his community will be fighting against further construction. “The time has come for us to stand shoulder to shoulder against Manitoba Hydro and the Manitoba government for the failure to fulfill their obligations under law.” Constant continued by declaring stoppage of the related works and negotiations until these issues are addressed. “Our treaties did not relinquish the rights to the waterways. Without water Manitobans and citizens of the United States will not have the benefit of hydroelectricity. This serves as notice that the infringement upon our Aboriginal and Treaty Rights and failure to accommodate these infringements relegates hydroelectricity as a conflict black market commodity.”
The proposed route will run through traditional and ancestral territories of many indigenous communities, including OCN.
Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs (AMC) Grand Chief Derek Nepinak said in another May 7 press release that Manitoba Hydro has not done their due diligence “Community engagement in the last few years has not adequately measured the losses that a community of families will experience in the shifting nature of their relationship with the land brought by industry development.”
Nepinak told the Nickel Belt News what needs to happen are contracts, so First Nations community members can be involved in the construction, instead of Manitoba Hydro procuring vendors from abroad. “They want to bring in certainty by bringing in other companies around the world who have successfully built bipoles who have successfully built them, but we don’t need to do that. We can do it right here, with our own hands, with our own people, without outsourcing the Canadian dollar that goes into it, that ends up leaving Manitoba or the country.”
Nepinak doesn’t want First Nations communities to be unknown variables in the discussion, and he hopes negotiations can happen so there isn’t great difficulty getting this project finished.
Scott Powell of Manitoba Hydro’s public affairs department says First Nations communities have the ability to bid for jobs. “Our hiring preferences both support and encourage participation in business and employment opportunities with aboriginal and northern communities. There have been direct negotiated contracts in some cases, and all communities have had opportunities to submit bids on various aspects of the work, and will continue to have the opportunity for work that’s coming up.”
Powell noted Manitoba Hydro has awarded approximately $79 million worth of direct contracts to aboriginal joint venture companies for the clearing component of the line already. The project is scheduled to be operational in 2018.
