Manitoba landowners hope an upcoming meeting with agriculture minister Ron Kostyshyn leads to pressure on Manitoba Hydro to treat farmers better.
The Manitoba Bipole 3 Landowners Committee says it wants Hydro to stop “bullying” farmers, but it also hopes to develop a collective agreement so that all farmers will be protected in negotiations for land access for the proposed new power line.
Committee chair Jurgen Kohler told Kostyshyn, who spoke at Keystone Agricultural Producers’ annual convention Jan. 28, that the crown corporation is threatening farmers with expropriation if they don’t sign one-sided easement agreements and is unwilling to meet with the committee.
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The committee is not the same as the Bipole 3 Coalition, which has opposed the decision to redirect the power back-up line from the eastern side of Lake Winnipeg, where there is wilderness, to the west side of Lake Manitoba, where thousands of farmers work the land.
The committee, on the other hand, accepts that Bipole 3 will be built but wants “a fair business agreement, a comprehensive business agreement that protects the future of our farms,” Kohler said.
Kostyshyn did not commit to changing Hydro’s demands, but he did promise a meeting with the committee.
“A meeting is short(ly) coming, I want to assure you of that,” Kostyshyn told Kohler after the KAP session.
“It will happen, a face-to-face meeting.”
Kohler said farmers are anxious about plant disease risks caused by construction and maintenance crews on the line, which will have towers every 400 metres. Clubroot has been on every farmer’s mind, and “I was shocked about the verticillium wilt.”
Kostyshyn urged KAP’s members to support the general idea of the Hydro back-up line, which the government considers essential to keep expanding the utility.
“I’m asking for an understanding, of an open-mindedness,” said Kostyshyn.
“Having an open mind, as you move forward, for the economic development of the province of Manitoba.”
ed.white@producer.com
