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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Neighbouring reserve joins suit against city
Shoal Lake No. 40 in water fight
Now the other Shoal Lake is going after the city.
The Shoal Lake No. 40 First Nations band filed a motion in Court of Queen's Bench this week to join the lawsuit Shoal Lake No. 39 filed this winter.
The neighbouring First Nations on the Ontario-Manitoba border intend to head off city hall from profiting from selling water from the lake they share.
"We will have an opportunity to present our unique case," said Chief Erwin Redsky, explaining Shoal Lake No. 40 filed an affidavit and a motion in Manitoba's courts to join the existing suit so it will have a say in what the city tries to do.
In March, lawyers for the Iskatewizaagegan Independent First Nation, also known as Shoal Lake No. 39, announced they'd gone to Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench to prevent the city from concluding service-sharing deals with the West St. Paul and Rosser municipalities.
Shoal Lake, which straddles the Manitoba-Ontario border, has served as the source of Winnipeg's drinking water since 1919, when a 155-kilometre aqueduct was built to carry water from Indian Bay to the city. Iskatewizaagegan First Nation has long maintained Winnipeg did not obtain consent to use the water.
Its neighbour, the new partner in the suit, said the federal government and Manitoba took more than 1,200 hectares of their best land for the aqueduct.
The village was relocated to a man-made island, created when builders carved a canal through the neck of a peninsula as part of the waterworks project a century ago.
"They built the works without our permission because they said people needed clean water and the rivers in the city were polluted. No one said anything about using the water outside the city to make a profit," Redsky said.
In March, the neighbouring band Shoal Lake No. 40, did not say they shared the dispute with their sister community, but geography and the city's refusal to negotiate their claims have apparently forced their hand.
"Litigation is not our preferred way, but Winnipeg decided to proceed over our objections," Redsky said.
"Our neighbours have decided to put the issue before the court so we had no choice: We have to be there to protect (our) interests," Redsky said.
The city has yet to respond with a comment to the latest court development.
alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 1, 2012 A16
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