A Manitoba politician was caught off guard last week when Manitoba Hydro bought ads informing the public that an open house in Haywood was cancelled.
Blaine Pedersen, a Progressive Conservative MLA for Carman, said the radio ads were a surprise because he had organized the open house, not Manitoba Hydro.
“I’m paying the rent on the hall. I’ve sent out the circulars to advertise it. I’m paying for the coffee and doughnuts, but Hydro is advertising that the meeting is cancelled,” said Pedersen.
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He scheduled the March 17 meeting in Haywood to provide information about Bipole III, a proposed power line that will transport electricity from dams in northern Manitoba to the southern half of the province.
Manitoba Hydro, a crown corporation and the province’s primary utility, is considering three possible routes for the line, which run west of Lake Manitoba and cut through the region between Portage la Prairie and Carman.
The three potential routes, known as the west side routes, have become a political football in the province. The PC party and many Manitobans believe the transmission line should be built east of Lake Winnipeg, because it’s the shorter and cheaper option. Estimates vary, but the figure often used is $640 million additional dollars to construct the line west of Lake Manitoba.
When Pedersen heard about the ads running on a Portage la Prairie radio station, he called Bob Brennan, Manitoba Hydro’s chief executive officer.
“All you’re doing is making mad people even madder,” said Pedersen, summarizing what he told Brennan.
Brennan agreed to pull the ads but according to Pedersen, the radio spots remained on the air, running until the day before the Haywood meeting.
Despite the radio ads, the open house attracted more than 125 people, Pederson said.
Glenn Schneider, a Hydro spokesperson, acknowledged the crown corporation bought the radio spots.
“We had a change in approach and decided we needed to let people know that we were not going to be appearing and holding an open house,” he said. Hydro held 20 public forums on Bipole III across rural Manitoba last fall, Schneider said. There was a request for another meeting this winter in Minnedosa, which Hydro attended.
“Then it grew into another one in Brandon and there was a third one (in Haywood),” he said. “This was becoming something we couldn’t manage.…. So we decided this is a treadmill we didn’t want to be on.”
Hydro purchased the radio spots to inform people that company representatives wouldn’t attend the Haywood event. But that wasn’t clear in the ad language.
“We didn’t word it in such a way that Manitoba Hydro would not be appearing at this meeting,” Schneider said.
