Last week the CEC announced that CEC hearings are moved back into 2015. This commitment for hearings is from Premier Sellinger. He made the commitment in January 2011, and then confirmed it again in a press release in July 2011. Terms of reference for the hearings have been in place since 2012.

Except these will be hearings without cross examination, without funding for participants legal counsel, without funding for independent experts who are part of participant teams, and without review of what Manitoba Hydro is providing as technical information. Early in 2015 the CEC will visit affected communities. And then there will be short hearings in Winnipeg. Then the CEC reports to Cabinet in 120 days after end of the hearings.

One has to ask - why the exclusion of outside information? No cross examination? No funding of participants in a supposedly 'public' process? No review of the information Manitoba Hydro is providing? We are talking about the same public utility right? The one owned by the people of Manitoba? What this boils down to is Manitoba Hydro not wanting any criticism of its use of Lake Winnipeg as a reservoir - and Hydro wanting a permanent licence so it can carry on believing it's assumption that artificially controlling the levels of such a large body of water could not possibly affect the health of Lake Winnipeg or cause the flooding of communities around the lake.

View more information on Manitoba Wildlands Lake Winnipeg page
View Manitoba Wildlands Lake Regulation Brief
View September 9, 2014 Yahoo! Canada News article
View February 5, 2013 CTV News article
View Living Lakes Canada information page
View Manitoba Government Lake Winnipeg Action Plan
View State of Lake Winnipeg: 1999 to 2007 Highlights