A northern Ontario First Nation is celebrating the connection to the province’s power grid today after an ambitious transmission line through the North extended its reach.
Poplar Hill First Nation, 570 kilometres northwest of Thunder Bay, is a remote, fly-in community, save for the brief ice road season. Until this week, most of the nation was powered by diesel, a high-emitting fuel dangerous for the climate and human health. Now, it will become the 13th First Nation in the area to be connected to a local grid.
Once finished, Wataynikaneyap Power is set to power 16 First Nations that have a 51 per cent stake in the transmission company. The line is a nearly two-decade-old initiative that will move remote northern Indigenous communities off total dependency on diesel.
Costs for diesel in the 25 diesel dependent communities in Northern Ontario was estimated at over $90 million per year, according to a 2015 report on impact analysis report on the transmission line. That 2025 amount was based on a $1.09 price of diesel in northern Ontario. Today the price has risen to $1.73 per litre.
According to the same impact analysis, the transmission line will help Ontario meet its carbon emission reduction roles. Weaning the First Nations communities off diesel will remove 6.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide over 40 years, which includes diesel burned in First Nations, as well as the diesel needed to transport the fuel. The amount is equivalent to taking almost 35,000 cars off the road.
“This is a really critical component,” Indigenous Services Canada Minister Patty Hajdu said in a phone interview. “First Nations deeply understand the importance of protecting our environment, and that if we don't take care of the environment we live in, that our futures as humans are in jeopardy.”
In a press release, Poplar Hill Chief Alvin Owen spoke about the importance of electrification to expand the community’s infrastructure.
““For too long, Poplar Hill has been reliant on diesel generation, which did not meet the needs of our growing community,” he said in the statement.
Hajdu said diesel is unreliable and at times disrupts education, medical and lighting needs in the North. The transmission line will play a central role in closing the infrastructure gap in Northern Ontario, Hajdu said, pointing towards cheaper and more reliable energy. The Assembly of First Nations estimates the infrastructure gap to be about $350 billion.
To date, Ottawa has invested $1.6 billion in the transmission project, as it continues to support First Nations' departure from their dependence on diesel.
In her interview, Hajdu also spoke against the Conservatives’ push to develop the North to serve resource extraction ambitions.
“First Nations still deserve the kind of interconnectivity that everyone else does, and I think that's the differentiation between a Conservative perspective and a Liberal one.
“We did this project because it was important to First Nations communities,” she said.
Matteo Cimellaro / Canada’s National Observer / Local Journalism Initiative
Comments
Really good to read this story. Connecting to the grid is the best energy choice for sure. It will be interesting to see what the community does next with (supposedly) reliable power.
would have been cheaper to do a micro biofuel generator.. nothing but wood around there. coupled with wind and solar.. hooking to a grid is unreliable and only draws on a system that has its own issues..
this is true for EVERY remote community relying on diesel
there are solutions but capitalists run the system