Pessamit, Quebec: The Chief of the Pessamit Innu Indian Band, Mr. René Simon, sent a letter in July to the Quebec Minister of the Environment, Mr. David Heurtel, on behalf of his community (the Pessamiulnut), asking that the Quebec-New Hampshire interconnection project be the subject of a public examination held under the auspices of the “Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement” (BAPE : Bureau of public hearings on the environment). If the request is not met, Pessamit is ready to take the matter to the national and international levels.
“We intend to demonstrate to the BAPE that in the case of the Quebec-New Hampshire interconnection project, the government is failing to comply with the spirit of its own laws, specifically those regarding the quality of the environment and sustainable development,” said Chief Simon. “Indeed, in its impact assessment, Hydro-Québec does not take the cumulative effects of the project into account at all” (Translation from French). There is thus a lack of coherence between the principles established by the above laws and the very narrow framework of the impact assessment. Hydro-Québec Production is playing the role of applicant while avoiding environmental accountability with Hydro-Québec TransÉnergie. We do not find it normal that this project is being analyzed in function of a corporate segmentation, with the production aspect going unmentioned. The legislator’s intentions seem incompatible with the fragmentation of environmental rationality, especially in this project where the analytical framework exists within the internal organization of the state company.”
See also “Scholars, First Nation disagree on Site C,” elsewhere this issue.