Province moving forward on relocating flood evacuees: Robinson

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This article was published 02/12/2011 (5381 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba Aboriginal Affairs Minister Eric Robinson says the province is moving ahead to relocate flood evacuees to a temporary site near Gypsumville as early as next month.

“We still have a commitment to Lake St. Martin,” Robinson said. “We owe it to the citizens of Lake St. Martin, who have been suffering now since early May in Winnipeg hotels.”

“We have to ensure that they, too, feel a level of comfort that their government is listening to them.”

The province plans to hold an information meeting for evacuees Monday at which time it will make the pitch directly to them for the temporary site.

The move comes after months of negotiations between the province, Ottawa and the band’s leaders. The leadership says the province is steamrolling over them without considering the wishes of residents, but Robinson said the province is just trying to make life better for the 700 people forced to flee flooding last spring. Most of them remain in Winnipeg hotel rooms.

“I don’t believe I’m violating or usurping the power, nor is this government, usurping the power of the First Nation,” he said. “But I believe that we’re also respecting the wishes of the people who have been living in these circumstances for the last several months.”

His comments come the day after reports the chief of Lake St. Martin vetoed the move because a company he runs failed to get a bid for houses on the site, an old radar base the province offered the First Nation.

Lake St. Martin Chief Adrian Sinclair denied the reports: “I’ve got nothing to gain.” 

Sinclair denies the company is owned directly by the chief and council and any profits would be paid into an unaudited band bank. “That’s not the case at all, ” he said.

He said that the chief and council set up two companies, with separate developers, for new houses for the First Nation to be used at a temporary site until a permanent reserve could be found on higher ground.

The first one was a construction company set up as a trust, with the Lake St. Martin First Nation to be paid 51 per cent of profits that would be set aside for community development. It didn’t bid on the deal.

Sinclair said the same trust arrangement was set up for a second company that would supply houses. In that case, the split was 60/40, with the community taking 60 per cent of any profits. The second company did submit a bid.

“That 60/40. The 60 goes into a community trust. You don’t touch that money, if it’s in a community trust. It’s not to give out $1000 to a councilor or $500. And they were both structured like that. The first community trust was a construction company. The second one was for houses,” Sinclair said.

The province said they expected a First Nation bid from Lake St. Martin but the paperwork shows no indication of a trust agreement with profits paid to the community.

“Regarding the aboriginal set-aside, we still needed to ensure the company was structured to the benefit of the community, similar to the objective of Community Benefits Agreement. They did not meet our criteria,” a provincial spokesman said in an email about the bid.

The company governance structure failed to reflect a community ownership or trust arrangement, according to the province.  As well, there was no health or safety program and the bid was too high, the spokesman said.

The province is going ahead with its plans to set up a village in Gypsumville, located 261 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg. Lake St. Martin is located 255 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg.

“As it stands, we have purchased houses through a previous public process that allowed for us to add to the order. We made this decision so that we could without delay get houses to the interim site as quickly as possible. We are contacting all of the evacuees in the next few days to let them know we continue to offer a home at the interim village as an alternative to living in a hotel. As of Nov. 10 we already had 157 households (522 people) signed up to move, ” the provincial email said.