(Unamen Shipu) The wind rises in Unamen Shipu. The snow has been falling since the night. A strong storm is expected to hit the Innu community of the Lower North Shore on this cold March day.
Here, more than 1,300 kilometers east of Montreal, winter has not said its last word.
Three vans park in front of the Madame Ruby motel. Even though the village of 1,200 souls is not connected to any road, its arteries are teeming with SUVs intermingling with snowmobiles and four-wheelers.
The transport has arrived. Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon (Economy, Innovation and Energy), dressed in a blue down sports coat, puts on his toque and joins his colleagues Ian Lafrenière (First Nations and Inuit) and Kateri Champagne Jourdain (Employment) outside.
The three ministers sit without hesitation in “the pick-up box » from a red Dodge Ram, under the resigned gaze of their bodyguard.
The convoy is traveling at low speed. The snow-covered and deserted streets offer stray dogs a vast playground. Direction: the band council, where a meeting is planned with Chief Raymond Bellefleur.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
A stray dog in the middle of a storm in the streets of Unamen Shipu
“It’s normal if there are parts where it doesn’t speak. » The Minister responsible for First Nations and Inuit offers advice to his College of Economy, Innovation and Energy. “We tend to fill the void, we shouldn’t do that, they are thinking,” he continues.
The contingent of government ministers headed to the Lower North Shore to visit the Innu communities of Unamen Shipu and Pakua Shipi – even further east.
Their visit is not trivial: Hydro-Québec is at a crossroads and must double its energy production by 2050. This means adding 200 terawatt hours of energy, including 60 terawatt hours by 2035. This is the equivalent of building the Romaine megacomplex seven and a half times within 11 years.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
Ministers Pierre Fitzgibbon, Ian Lafrenière and Kateri Champagne Jourdain meet chef Raymond Bellefleur (center).
In the words of the big boss of Hydro-Québec: “This is not the time for half measures. »
The energy appetite to support economic growth and decarbonize Quebec is such that the state-owned company brought out from the drawer where it had been sleeping for 20 years the idea of a hydroelectric project on the Petit Mécatina river, in Basse-Côte -North.
The river flows through the ancestral lands of the Unamen Shipu and Pakua Shipi communities.
The announcement of the resumption of studies, in April 2023, provoked an outcry. The mayors of the Lower North Shore do not want it as long as Route 138 is not extended (see other text). The Innu have expressed their opposition on more than one occasion.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
Chef Raymond Bellefleur
Chief Raymond Bellefleur was outraged when the Hydro teams only flew over the community’s territory.
Not like the 1950s
“ [Doubler la production], it cannot happen today in the same way as it happened in the 1950s,” admits Pierre Fitzgibbon. The minister also dreams of seeing wind turbines quickly grow on Innu lands. “It’s now,” he says.
The vision of the superminister of the Legault government is clear: indigenous communities and MRCs must be “shareholders” of projects to “facilitate social acceptability”.
“Otherwise, we face a headwind,” he says.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
Ministers Ian Lafrenière, Kateri Champagne Jourdain and Pierre Fitzgibbon meet representatives of the MRC du Golfe-du-Saint-Laurent.
Pierre Fitzgibbon must table a bill in the coming weeks which aims in particular to accelerate the development of wind farms to meet energy needs.
There would be a question of streamlining the state company’s call for tenders for wind power, for example. “We need to move faster at the administrative level to allow transactions to be carried out with communities,” explains the minister.
Hydro-Québec wants to integrate more than 10,000 megawatts (MW) of new wind capacity by 2035. These additions represent more than $30 billion in private and public investments.
Here, it will clearly be wind power and returbining [NDLR : remplacer les turbines de centrales existantes pour en augmenter la puissance] of existing power plants. But these are new projects. When you talk to communities, you don’t come in and say: we’re changing the turbines. It has significant effects on the environment. To do this, we will have no choice but to have them be partners.
Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon
The minister even speaks of a “new approach to holding energy assets” where Hydro-Québec would remain the main shareholder.
“People who receive royalties don’t work because they don’t feel as involved,” continues the minister.
“If communities don’t have money, I think we have to be ready to lend them some. Not give it to them, lend it to them because one day, they will have resources that will come back to them. I think that’s a bit why Ian [Lafrenière] likes to take me with him. »
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
New Hydro-Québec facilities at Unamen Shipu. The state-owned company wants to integrate more than 10,000 megawatts (MW) of new wind capacity by 2035. These additions represent more than $30 billion in private and public investments.
In its action plan towards 2035, Hydro-Québec undertakes to “facilitate the acquisition, by indigenous communities, of direct stakes in the infrastructures that will be deployed on ancestral territory”.
These participations could be subject to financial support from the state company or other private or government sources of financing, we write.
“I am much more interested as Minister of Energy in a project that is done with partners to separate the profits […] Michael Sabia shares this vision,” assures Mr. Fitzgibbon.
This is the second time in a year that the heavyweight of the CAQ team has entered Unamen Shipu territory.
In November, it was Mr. Sabia’s turn to go there. In particular, he gave the Innu a letter of apology from the state corporation for past wrongs.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
The President and CEO of Hydro-Québec, Michael Sabia, during the inauguration of the Romaine 1 hydroelectric complex last fall.
An “economic reconciliation” agreement to compensate the Innu for the development in 1995 of the Lac-Robertson hydroelectric power station, in Gros-Mécatina, is within reach, we have learned. The Council of Ministers could give the green light this spring.
A similar agreement is also being negotiated with Pakua shipi, but the draft settlement is much less advanced.
However, the Innu of the Lower North Shore make these agreements a non-negotiable prerequisite to any discussion for energy development on their territory.
Quebec, Hydro-Québec and the Innu of Pessamit (near Baie-Comeau) concluded a framework agreement in February, a first step towards an energy development partnership.
Read the article by The Press : “First rapprochement between Quebec and Pessamit”