Sheila Sanderson

they knew what the outcome would be. “They knew, but they were
after the high water for Hydro purposes. That was the main goal no
matter what. They used to come here and say that our lives would be
alotbetter with hydro power. I think we would’ve been a lot better off
if we would've been left alone. We could’ve done without hydro
power, that's for sure” (CBC files Country Canada).

Conclusion

Through the close examination of one hydroelectric diversion
project, ithasbeen shown that while short term economic and political
gains may be attractive, long term results can be very costly. This is
especially true for the northern villages which are directly and pro-
foundly affected by such projects. In Canada, very few hydrological
projects were preceded by impact assessments even though ecological
disaster has usually been recognized as unavoidable. Itis amazing that
the damming and diverting of rivers continues when ecological risks
are high. But governments have managed to ou tweigh such issues by
appealing to the “public interest” (Waldram 1988:172).

Garrett Hardin, in his Tragedy of the Commons essay, has pointed
out that the promotion of public interest is quite impossible because it
assumes that decisions reached individually, by a political leader for
example, will, in fact, be the best decisions for an entire society. In the
case of South Indian Lake, Manitoba’s premier decided that the
Churchill-Nelson Hydro Project would benefit most, if not all, people
of the province. As was made clear throughout this paper, this was far
from true. What has been true is that “There is a political imperative
and...an imperative which drives huge crown corporations. If those
two imperatives meet and there is a community of interest, they will
find a way of achieving what tends to be a shared objective” (CBCfiles
for Country Canada). In the past, this has usually been done with total
disregard for the ecosystems which are found within the community
of shared interest.

For the sake of the future, we must stop treating the northern
resources of water, minerals, forests, etc. like packages which are
sitting up on some shelf waiting to be brought down tobe ‘developed.”
Anunderstandingof thoseresourcesand how they work together must
be found sothatevenafter they are utilized, they can continue working
together in a balanced manner. As Robert Newberry has argued

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