Ottawa offers province assist on flood outlet assessment

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This article was published 21/07/2020 (2081 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — The Pallister government is taking up Ottawa’s offer of a crash course on how to properly assess the environmental effects of flood-channel outlets after a megaproject planned for the Interlake hit numerous regulatory snags.

“We work through collaboration,” provincial Infrastructure Minister Ron Schuler said Monday.

“We are really pleased with the way the federal civil service has been working with our departments, and even at the political level. We’re pleased to see we’re making progress.”

The Lake Manitoba-Lake St. Martin megaproject, which has been in the works for years, aims to prevent costly, catastrophic floods like the ones that occurred in 2011 and 2014.

Premier Brian Pallister has singled out the $540-million project as part of his legacy, and Ottawa has agreed to pay roughly half its cost. But the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada has paused its year-long review multiple times, arguing Manitoba hasn’t properly assessed the project’s effects.

In its latest review, IAAC said on July 10 that Manitoba has again provided contradictory data and insufficient evidence to support its claims, while still not adequately consulting Indigenous communities.

That’s despite Manitoba redoing its 2,300-page report this spring, after the IAAC found hundreds of errors and omissions in the report.

The July 10 review flags a lack of information in how Manitoba will try preventing the spread of invasive species, the drainage of wetlands, and the disruption to numerous animal habitats.

In its letter this month, the IAAC proposed “a technical workshop with federal experts and your team to facilitate a better understanding of the expectations… and to ensure complete responses.”

Schuler said he’ll take up that offer.

First Nations and Métis have argued the province isn’t adequately consulting them on the project.

In its latest review, the regulator repeated its calls for Manitoba to consult more with communities as far as 500 kilometres downstream from the project. That’s a non-starter for Schuler.

“We’ve basically come to the conclusion that some of the communities that were identified are, in fact, so distant from the project itself that they don’t warrant any further study,” he said.

“We’re always talking to all of our partners; this is not something that we’re closed on. But our focus has been the communities right around, and impacted most by… where the channels are going to be built.”

Yet Schuler signalled the province is softening its tone. For months, Pallister has complained about burdensome consultation requirements. Schuler said there was a breakthrough when Pallister visited Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in January, and that Manitoba recognizes the need for large projects to face environmental scrutiny.

This month’s letter once again pauses IAAC’s clock. The regulator has a year to review the project before the federal Liberals decide whether to green-light it.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca

Interlake flood-outlet channels July federal and provincial reports