Hydro Review - March 2014

By Stephanie Landers

Stephanie Landers is communications and public outreach coordinator for the Ontario Waterpower Association (OWA). This article is based on the documentary “Our Heritage, Our Future – The Kapuskasing River Waterpower Project,” available from OWA.

When infrastructure and towns were frst being developed in Ontario, people naturally came to rivers, frst for transportation, then for economic opportunities such as log driving, grist mills, local electricity and/or mechanical generation. Waterpower was the economic engine upon which the initial prosperity of the province was built.

Up until 1951, all of Ontario’s electricity came from falling water. In the 1960s and 1970s, new development in the province moved to coal and nuclear facilities, but Ontario’s hydroelectric feet has remained the backbone of the electricity supply. In the late 1990s, with the commercialization of Ontario’s hydroelectric sector, there was renewed interest in the development of waterpower sites.

To support this renewed interest, the Ontario
Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) introduced
the Waterpower Site Release Policy in 2004 —
outlining the process for accessing Crown land
to develop waterpower resources. The goal of the
Ontario, Canada. Construction on the project
began in 2005. What is unique about this project,
is how it successfully demonstrates a new business
model for hydropower, perhaps the frst of its kind,
through the collective partnerships of the fve own-
ers, which includes three First Nation communities
(Brunswick House First Nation, Chapleau Ojibwe
First Nation and Chapleau Cree First Nation), the
municipality of Kapuskasing and the private devel-
oper, Hydromega Services Inc.

“What we are seeing with this partnership and elsewhere is economic and business partnerships being brought forward by the communities themselves,” says Paul Norris, president of the Ontario Waterpower Association (OWA). “Now, the communities are equity partners on the project. They are not just consulted in terms of the potential effect on their interest or Aboriginal and Treaty Rights, they are partners in the project. That’s a new business model in hydroelectricity and one that is spreading across the province in our and in other renewable energy sectors.”

Waterpower in Ontario

Canada’s Aboriginal people have been using natural river systems as a means of transportation and sustenance since long before European settlement. The land and the rivers that run through it remain a central part of Aboriginal culture and the relationship remains very sacred and respected by the surrounding communities.