NDP, Tories plan trips to east-side communities

A pack of Manitoba politicians is heading to remote First Nations communities on the east side of Lake Winnipeg over the next few weeks.

Nine provincial cabinet ministers will meet with 16 First Nations on several issues, ranging from protection for traditional land to transportation to economic development, Conservation Minister Stan Struthers announced Thursday.

Conservative leader Hugh McFadyen said the NDP government's visit is two months late and $1.5 billion short, saying he made plans last year to visit the region to hear from native leaders who want Manitoba Hydro's proposed BiPole III transmission line to travel down the east side of the province, rather than the west, as the provincial government has ordered.

The ministers' trip to the east side is pure public relations, McFadyen said.

"It's clearly a sign that the NDP have a PR problem on their hands, and they have to send a baseball team's worth of cabinet ministers up the east side," he said.

"Clearly they are on the defensive over the BiPole decision. They know there's building support among the aboriginal people on the east side. The problem they have, of course, is that no amount of NDP ministers are going to be able to sell Manitobans on what is fundamentally the wrong thing to do for Manitoba."

McFadyen said he plans to take one or two members of his shadow cabinet on his trip to the region, expected in the next few weeks.

Meetings not about PR, government says

Conservation Minister Stan Struthers, the lead minister on the government excursion, disagrees that the trip is about public relations.

The visit follows up on meetings the government had with east-side community leaders two years ago, he said.

"A decision on the BiPole has been made, and it's coming down the west side," he said.

"We're willing to talk about any issue at all, about anything that these communities … want to talk about. It may be public relations for Mr. McFadyen, but this is historic for us."

The meetings are honouring commitments the government made to east-side communities to hold regular dialogues with them, Struthers said.

Provincial officials announced in September that BiPole III, Manitoba Hydro's third high-voltage, direct-current transmission line, will take a more expensive route down the west of Lake Manitoba, rather than cutting a shorter route through a large swath of pristine boreal forest on the east side of Lake Winnipeg.