Oil nets Pipestone residents $500 each

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/11/2011 (5451 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

People living in the vicinity of Manitoba’s hottest oilfield, the Sinclair field, will get a Christmas bonus this year.

The RM of Pipestone, in Manitoba’s southwest corner, is sending out a $500 oil cheque to every residence.

There are about 600 households in the area. That means a payout of about $300,000.

That’s small potatoes compared to what the RM is raking in: $2 million per year in royalties over the past two years.

Royalties? Don’t provincial governments get royalties? Don’t royalties go to people holding mineral rights because their land was settled in the 1890s, before government assumed control of resource rights?

Yes, royalties. Whenever a tax sale came up on a property, the RM was smart. It sold the land but kept the mineral rights. Today, it has 40 wells pumping oil on land where it holds those mineral rights. Those wells are paying a royalty of 15 to 18 per cent on whatever comes out of the ground.

Reeve Ross Tycoles said the RM is embarking on a re-population campaign. Reston, the location of the RM office, is the largest village, with about 500 people. Now anyone building a new home in the RM can get a rebate of $4,000. Companies constructing a new building can receive rebates of as much as $20,000.

The RM is also putting in an $18-million piped water system for all the residences, including farms and rural residential homes.

It’s also investing in capital projects. It recently chipped in $100,000 toward the hamlet of Sinclair’s $400,000 community hall, which also received generous support from oil companies such as Tundra Oil and Gas.

 

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ALL WET — An editorial in a North Dakota daily recently speculated on how flooding might play out politically in that state in next year’s U.S. elections.

If Manitoba is any indication, it won’t play out at all.

If there was one riding where people wanted to punish the NDP government for its handling of the flood, it was the Interlake. And if there was one MLA that farmers, cottagers and other residents wanted to punish most, it was the NDP’s Interlake representative, Tom Nevakshonoff.

While his constituents fought flooding, Nevakshonoff downplayed their struggle. Nevakshonoff told Lake Manitoba flood victims things could be worse — they could be living in Japan, where the tsunami hit in March and destroyed a nuclear reactor.

He didn’t stop there. He suggested Lake Manitoba residents might even regard themselves as lucky. At least they weren’t being flooded like some along the Mississippi River, he said.

Nevakshonoff later apologized.

Nevakshonoff won the election regardless. Local people say the NDP worked the phones like never before to get their vote out. Nevakshonoff told a local weekly newspaper that the First Nations vote carried it for him. (St. Laurent and beaches south of there are not in the riding.)

Nevakshonoff said his First Nations vote increased over last election. Despite that, his margin of victory fell from 1,600 votes in 2007 to about 450.

Which is not to criticize the vote from First Nations. They were flooded, too, none more so than Lake St. Martin First Nation. There are seven First Nations in the riding. The First Nations have historically had strong ties to the NDP.

Still, to those who wanted to vent after all they’ve endured from the man-made flooding, the election result hurt. Many people wanted to send a message. The election just underscored the powerlessness they have felt since this whole nightmare began.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca