Issue Analysis: Hydroelectric Energy Development and Trade

Prior learning:

What do you know about hydroelectric energy? Check the boxes below (the ‘x’ means it is true):
☐ Renewable energy source
☐ Non-renewable energy source
☐ Low environmental impact
☐ High environmental impact
☐ Produces a lot of energy
☐ Produces a low amount of energy

Record anything else you know in the space below:

WATER

Listen to the following 4-part podcast. Below is the introduction from the show hosts:
http://outsideinradio.org/powerline
Hydro-Québec, the world’s fourth largest hydro-power producer, pumps out low carbon
electricity at the cheapest rates in North America. For some, it is the key to a greener,
more prosperous, future, but that “clean energy” comes freighted with a complicated
history and an uncertain future.

This is the story of how a massive, state-owned utility company came to be a

symbol of the French-Canadian people. It’s also the story of how a company, with all
of the force of a colonial culture behind it, used its power to try to push Quebec’s
original occupants—its Indigenous people—to one side. It’s the story of how that effort
led to something that has become its own kind of revolution in Canada: native people
pushing to regain power over their own lives and culture.

And it’s a story about the environmental benefits and human costs of clean energy. 
As you listen to the podcast, you need to take notes on the main ideas from each episode,
similar to what you are doing when you listen to the 2050 podcast. Use the organiser below to
help you:

Episode What happened in this one?

Places and names you hear
1 northern pass
new Hampshire
Quebec
Massachusetts
centrale robert bourassa
Rene Levesque
2
3
4 -hove sant pier
-ekuanitshit
-romain complex
-b4 project = not much money
-75 mill 60 years
-standing rock
-split up bands to make deals
-made them poor and gave them
a solution to the pROBLEM THEY
FUCKING CREATED
-won't get through gate
-chief didn't want to talk bc they
talked to hydro quebec
-chief was pissed
-
1. How have the policies or actions of Hydro Quebec changed with respect to negotiating
agreements with First Nations groups for access to water and land in their territories?

They have changed a bit. They no longer just straight up take the land, they kinda split up the
different bands in order to get what they want. They make the people split on a decision, start
construction on the land they got permission for and get pissie when the people who said no still
don't want it on their land.

2. Do governments and corporations have rights to water and land in Quebec?

No, they absolutely don't. they have ‘the right’ (kinda) in the ‘right’ on the Bay, but only because
they stole the land and ‘made a deal’ with the Cree or Inuit.

https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/DAM/DAM-CIRNAC-RCAANC/DAM-TAG/STAGING/texte-
text/htoc_1100100032308_eng.pdf

https://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/DAM/DAM-INTER-HQ-AI/STAGING/texte-
text/mprm_pdf_modrn-treaty_1383144351646_eng.pdf

3. Go to the Canadian Encyclopedia to read about this project. Does this information match what
you heard in the podcast?

It more or less matches, yes.

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/james-bay-project

4. What new information does it provide? Take 4-5 point-form notes on the most important
information not covered by the podcast.

2 phases

caused mercury in fish

lead to 10,000 caribou dead

caused flooding bigger than Belgium

5. Knowing what you have learned about this topic, should governments in Canada be promoting
and investing in hydroelectric energy?

The government of Canada wants to be more energy conscious. They want to use hydroelectrics.
But has it been considered that the energy could be stolen from Indigenous land and the people
who live there. they want us to believe that all the families and bands and tribes that they took
this land from are ok with it. the government doesn't necessarily want us to know they took this
land and this energy unethically. many of the tactics that they used violated UNRIP or are just
plain unethical.