Lake Manitoba Lake St. Martin Outlet Channel Project: An Opportunity for the New NDP Provincial Government to Reassess
Chief Cornell McLean delivered a compelling opinion piece in this week’s Winnipeg Free Press urging the new Provincial NDP government to diverge from the path taken by its predecessor and thoroughly reconsider the – Lake Manitoba Lake St. Martin Outlet Channel Project. Chief McLean expressed the pressing need for meaningful consultation and consent from First Nation communities directly affected by this proposed project.
The project was initially conceived as a permanent flood control system to replace the existing Lake St. Martin Emergency Outlet Channel established in 2011 in response to record high floods in southern Manitoba. Despite being positioned as a key solution for flood management, the province has not adequately engaged or consulted impacted First Nations communities.
Daniel Crump: Winnipeg Free Press Files. January 29th, 2024
As it currently stands, this project poses severe threats to the entire watershed, impacting animals, fish, and people who rely on these lands and waters. Early in the project proposal, independent engineers pointed to the false assumption that Lake St. Martin was a single basin lake in the project’s proposal report. An oversight which would result in intense and severe flooding in the south basin of the lake.
Beyond ineffective flood mitigation for communities, the construction and operation of new channels would add compounding pressures to already stressed environments. Communities have been calling for attention to the dwindling fish populations witnessed across the watershed, a decline attributed to the cumulative impacts from pollution, dams and diversions. This project brings whitefish populations that much closer to the brink.
The previous governments failure to assess these cumulative impacts in favour of pushing forward a project to protect landowners in the south is a gross misstep.
Flood management and climate adaptation are essential for our resilience to a changing climate. Yet, these plans fail to address ongoing and aggressive drainage throughout Assiniboine watershed in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Along with climate change, drainage has exacerbated the problem and endangered so many lives and homes. Large engineering projects are not always the right decision when climate resilience needs to be fostered across the landscape.
If this province wants to proceed then it must be done with the peoples most impacted and must include the free, informed and prior consent of Indigenous peoples who will be affected by these decisions for generations to come.
We will leave this with a quote from Chief Cornell McLean in the Op Ed published in the Free Press this week:
“We are hopeful for a future where flood management decisions are made in a manner that complies with modern expectations of Indigenous partnership and consent over the infrastructure that affects us. First Nations need to be partners in the making of flood-management decisions that affect us. ”
Read the full article in the Winnipeg Free Press here.