First face-to-face talks over Jenpeg protest

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/10/2014 (3463 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Members of a band occupying Manitoba Hydro’s Jenpeg generating station met a provincial mediator on Thursday — along with representatives from Manitoba Hydro — in an effort to end their protest.

Pimicikamak Cree Nation has been in control of the station for two weeks after locking out all but a skeleton staff to keep the generator running, while demanding Premier Greg Selinger’s NDP government compensate it for decades of flooding.

Pimicikamak Chief Cathy Merrick said a working group from the band began meeting provincial officials in the early afternoon, the first face-to-face negotiations between all parties.

“It’s a start,” Merrick said. “We’ll see where it takes us. Hopefully, there’s a road map. I hope there’s a commitment from government.”

Asked why the chief wasn’t at the meeting, Merrick replied: “I’m waiting for the premier to come here.”

A Pimicikamak official later said some progress had been made at the talks, though no deal had yet been reached.

“Meetings today were productive and the process is moving. We will know more in the next several days,” Darwin Paupanakis, secretary to the council of Pimicikamak, said in an email.

Pimicikamak, located about 530 kilometres north of Winnipeg, is populated by about 8,800 residents in some 800 houses — some with three generations under one roof.

Band members charge the province has not properly compensated residents for flooding damage caused by Jenpeg, located about 20 km from Cross Lake, which opened in 1979 and controls the outflows from Lake Winnipeg into the Nelson River system.

The band’s demands from the province include:

• A public apology from Selinger for past and present harms sufferedã by all hydro-affected peoples and their lands.
• A commitment from Manitoba and Manitoba Hydro to engage in a good-faith process to fulfil promises in the 1977 Northern Flood Agreement, including measures related to community development, environmental mitigation and maximum employment opportunities.
• A revenue-sharing agreement and/or water-rental arrangement with Pimicikamak.

Merrick said the meetings with officials in Winnipeg will continue. But the first move had to come from the premier himself, she insisted.

“If the premier is willing to come up to speak to my people, we’ll take it from there,” Merrick said.

The band has put a lock on the Hydro employees’ staff house, but has no plans to remove any of the skeleton crew.

randy.turner@freepress.mb.ca