MMF miffed it’s still excluded from Hydro deal

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This article was published 20/06/2019 (1973 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA —The Manitoba Metis Federation says it was blindsided by a new assertion that the province’s cancelled $67.5-million deal is not a requirement for Hydro’s transmission line to Minnesota to proceed.

“It’s all politics now,” MMF president David Chartrand said Friday. “No one wants to rattle the cards now.”

A week ago, the federal Liberals approved Manitoba Hydro’s long-planned Manitoba-Minnesota Transmission Project, contingent on five modifications to the National Energy Board’s conditions.

Among the modifications is that Hydro has to uphold “all commitments made to Indigenous groups,” as of a hearing last November.

Natural Resources Canada has refused to clarify on-record whether that includes the $67.5-million tentative deal Hydro signed with the MMF, later cancelled by Premier Brian Pallister, who called it “hush money.”

However, a senior federal official has confirmed that Ottawa’s understanding of terms it modified now only commit Manitoba Hydro to upholding agreements that existed as of late 2018, by which point the MMF deal had already been cancelled.

International Trade Diversification Minister Jim Carr said officials told him the MMF deal is “discrete” from the new conditions.

“My understanding is that the conditions were related to NEB conditions that have been amended by the governor-in-council, but the Manitoba Metis Federation’s agreement with the province is a separate matter,” Carr told the Free Press Thursday.

Chartrand disputes that logic, noting that the MMF successfully convinced the NEB in June 2018 to not strike its deal from being noted in the official record, after Hydro asked it be removed.

He suspects Ottawa isn’t clarifying its position, because the MMF is suing the province over the deal.

“If they’re trying to say it doesn’t mean the MMF agreement (is included), then they should have made it specifically say it doesn’t mean that. Because all legal minds on my side of the bench are telling me this is the paper trail,” Chartrand said.

“From my perspective — our lawyer’s perspective — the language is very clear, it’s black and white.”

In the report Natural Resources Canada presented to the Liberals, officials noted that “concerns unrelated to the project were raised over the course of the Crown consultation process.” They reported connecting those raising such concerns “with a representative from the relevant federal authority.”

First Nations are also mobilizing against the Hydro project, over their own issues.

Sagkeeng has argued that the line will disrupt local moose populations, and that herbicides used during construction will impact medicinal and food plants.

Officials from Roseau River told the Free Press the band plans to reactivate a 2017 lawsuit it had stalled, in an effort to seek an injunction against the Hydro line.

Pallister has warned that a year of delays would add $200 million in taxpayer costs.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca

Consultation report on Manitoba Hydro's transmission line to Minnesota.pdf