Without being decisive, the historic partnership concluded with the Mohawk community of Kahnawake, in Montérégie, will certainly have contributed to Hydro-Quebec obtaining, on Monday, the major electricity supply contract for New York City.
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According to our information, the State of New York, responsible for the call for proposals to which the state corporation responded, paid special attention to the social accessibility of the projects received.
“I do not have the precise details of the score, told us a source close to the file. But there is no doubt that this element of understanding with the natives weighed in the balance. “
Valued at $ 20 billion by the Prime Minister, this export contract – the largest ever won by Hydro-Québec – involves the supply of 10.4 TWh of electricity per year to New York, for a period of 25 years.
If Hydro-Quebec has been discreet, to date, on the revenues and benefits it intends to derive from this major project, it deemed it appropriate to recall its partnership, dating from last June, with the Council of Mohawks of Kahnawà: ke.
Going unnoticed until then, this agreement between the Mohawks and Hydro-Quebec provided that if the New York State contract was awarded, Kahnawake would become co-owner of the transmission line to be built in Quebec up to the American border. .
Photo d’archives
The CEO of Hydro-Quebec, Sophie Brochu, spoke yesterday with the great chef Kahsennenhawe Sky-Deer, in Kahnawake, about the partnership agreement related to the electricity contract with the State of New York.
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Still some details to work out
Hydro and the Kahnawake Council refuse to disclose specific elements of this agreement, arguing that details remain to be finalized.
“We are still negotiating,” admitted chef Mike Delisle Jr. But I am optimistic that we can come to an agreement. “
The 60 km underground transmission line, to be built between the Hertel substation in La Prairie, and the Canada-US border, will not encroach in any way on the territory of the indigenous community of Kahnawake.
However, it will partly cross that of ancestral lands, three times the size, known as the Seigneurie de Sault-Saint-Louis, granted in 1680. Covering an area of approximately 24,000 acres, this territory corresponds today to ‘ hui, in addition to the aboriginal territory of Kahnawake, to the municipalities of Saint-Constant, Sainte-Catherine, Delson, as well as part of the towns of Candiac, Saint-Philippe and Saint-Mathieu.
Courtesy photo
Kahsennenhawe Sky-Deer
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True business partnership
The share that the Mohawks will hold in the transportation infrastructure that will be erected in the coming years remains a mystery. But according to our information, the latter would be around “10 to 20%”, making the community full partners in the project.
“We’re not talking about compensation here. They will contribute equally to the construction costs of the line and the profits of its operation. It’s a real business partnership, ”says Hydro’s communications director, Serge Abergel.
It is in this capacity, that of business partner, that Sophie Brochu, CEO of Hydro, went to Kahnawake. Long planned, this meeting was above all an opportunity for the CEO – given the circumstances – to express her satisfaction at undertaking a first business partnership with the community.
–With Olivier Bourque
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