Manitoba First Nations hopeful flood channel design will reduce impact on treaty rights – Winnipeg [Video]

First Nations communities in the Interlake, Man., region are hoping that new designs for a long-delayed flood mitigation project for Lake Manitoba and Lake St. Martin will address their concerns over its impact on Indigenous people in the area.

“We’re old timers, we like the land the way nature made it,” Lake Manitoba First Nation councillor Dwight Paul said while walking along the shores of Watchorn Bay on Lake Manitoba, where a proposed flood outlet channel  is slated to go.

“But progress and life is progress and life, I guess.”

After major flooding in 2011 devastated the region, and again in 2014, the province proposed two flood outlet channels, about 23 km each, which would divert flood waters from Lake Manitoba to Lake St. Martin and into Lake Winnipeg.

Lake Manitoba First Nation Chief Cornell McLean, who is also the chair of the Interlake Reserves Tribal Council, says First Nations …