Alliance Romaine » News

Waiting for Charest

rosemary — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:48:27 +0000

Street theatre in Quebec City

(Oct. 7th) Alliance Romaine arrived in Quebec City Monday with a dramatic flourish, exposing our message in a colorful street theatre performance in front of the National Assembly. As marathoner Julien Leckman looked on, a team of actresses presented a skit designed to warn about the dangers posed by bulk water and bulk energy exports. The script, and especially the gesturing, were beautifully executed, and the photos just seemed to take themselves!

Since the start of our marathon, Alliance Romaine has argued that hydroelectricity is not clean energy, but through the theatre piece we hope to emphasize the additional fact that the electricty to be produced by new projects like the Romaine will not be targeted to domestic consumption, but will supply external markets in New England and Ontario. The problems that we have with this are two-fold. First, by exporting underpriced and polluting energy from Quebec’s rivers, we are discouraging other jurisdictions from investing in greener energy alternatives such as wind and biomass; and second, the sheer scale of planned hydroelectric production and export does not account for the natural carrying capacity of Quebec’s ecosystems. With fourteen of our seventeen large rivers (the Romaine would be the fifteenth) already dammed or altered, this carrying capacity has already been exceeded.

The night before our run to the National Assembly, we drove into the city to take part in a discussion on hydroelectricty and energy policy that was being held at Café Ninkasi, on rue St. Jean, and we were intrigued to learn that in the early nineteen nineties a series of province-wide public hearings had advised the government to focus its future energy strategy on reducing consumption and eliminating waste, and that this advice was never followed. The comments made in this regard by M. André Bélisle, of the Association québécoise de lutte contre la pollution atmosphérique (website www.aqlpa.com) were most informative. If the then PQ government had heeded the citizens’ recommendations fifteen years ago, neither the Rupert nor the Romaine River would now be threatened.

Alliance Romaine had written ahead to Mr. Charest solliciting a public debate on points like this, but in another moment reminiscent of theatre (this time recalling Beckett’s Waiting for Godot), our inscrutable and, to some, revered premier did not show up, leaving us high and dry on the steps of the National Assembly. Jean Charest’s absence was not totally surprising, given his past reluctance to disclose information. As environmental activists we had already heard of the Plan Nord, a supposedly comprehensive development strategy including a decision to produce 8000 new megawatts of hydroelectricity (five times the capacity of the Romaine project) on the North Shore, and we knew that the provincial government had so far refused to provide a list of the North Shore rivers that these dams would be built on. But what we did not know, and what we only found out from M. Bélisle of the AQLPA was that the Plan Nord did not exist! That’s right; M. Bélisle had written to the government asking that the “Plan Nord” document be sent to him, and was informed that there was no policy document available in any government office known as the Plan Nord, nothing for citizens to evaluate, or base their assesment of Mr. Charest’s performance on. The “Plan Nord” was a campaign slogan tailored to last year’s provincial election, and nothing more. A revelation like this truly underscores the culture of secrecy, or else, incompetence, that must prevail in high places!

After four weeks of travels, visits to communities, and not a few eye-openers, an at once wiser and more militant Alliance Romaine marathon team is now on the road, carrying our message towards Trois-Pistoles, anticipating the broadening of the St. Lawrence and the beginning of rough country as we embark on the final stretches of our approach to the Romaine River.

Before signing off, we would like to offer a few thanks. First to Joey and Julien Leckman, our first duo of brothers, who drove out to join the marathon together, and carried the baton gracefully between Ste.-Anne-de-la-Pérade, and the Montmorency Falls, east of Quebec City. Second, to Valérie Roussel, our cheerful and talented Quebec City host. A Masters student in ethnology at Laval University, theatre buff, and a long-time Alliance Romaine sympathizer, Valérie had originally volunteered to run a leg of the marathon for us, but she broke her leg . Nothing daunted, Valérie threw herself heart and soul into the organizing of our itinerary, inviting speakers and booking a café, and alerting media to our presence. It is thanks to Valérie that our stay in the provincial capital went so smoothly. The skit in front of the National Assembly, which we will all remember for a long time, was her brainchild, and its success is hers.

To all those people like Valérie, who have helped us in one way or another to stand up for our endangered rivers, un gros merci! You folks are the democratic backbone of our movement, and the eventual guarantors of our success.

Smiles and greetings to all!

The Alliance Romaine road crew

East of Quebec City

MARATHON!

fbristow — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:43:52 +0000

Coming this fall..
The Fifty Marathons Campaign
Run for our Rivers

As a cornerstone of our political strategy, Alliance Romaine is launching an ambitious marathon campaign designed to physically and figuratively connect the fates of two separate rivers.

Starting in early September, a team of volunteer athletes will run 42-kilometer relays on a route stretching from James Bay to the Lower North Shore.

The event will kick off at the spectacular Oatmeal Rapids, where the historic and soon-to-be diverted Rupert River crosses the James Bay Highway.

Embodying the traditional role of runner as messenger, the marathoners will transmit the experiences and disappointments of the James Bay Cree communities which have been impacted by forty years of aggressive hydroelectric development on their lands. As we run through the communities of southern and eastern Quebec, we will showcase the struggles of local activists who have fought to protect wild rivers including the Dumoine, the Magpie and the Moisie. We will hold seminars and public presentations to discuss energy strategy, and we will expose the cumulative loss to biodiversity, fisheries, and recreational and cultural values that is occasioned by a policy that involves damming the majority of Quebec’s large rivers.

Divided into a set of approximately fifty marathons, the event will span two thousand kilometers, and last five weeks, before concluding on traditional Innu territory at the spot where the now-threatened Romaine River flows into the St. Lawrence.

This campaign’s aim is to mobilize and give a voice to the large numbers of Quebecers who believe that our rivers should be valued as something more than potential treadmills to produce cheap energy.

Our demands:
1. A halt to the recently-initiated hydroelectric project on the Romaine River
2. A moratorium on hydroelectric dam development, including the Little Mecatina
3. Protected status for the full length of the Romaine River
4. Good-faith land title negotiations with First Nations
5. Adopt a conservation based energy strategy with full public accountability
6. End energy subsidies to big business
7. A system of government grants and incentives to support small-scale renewable energies

Jean Charest is not on the defensive… he should be…

fbristow — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:25:49 +0000

Recently the French writer and Nobel laureate, Le Clézio, denounced plans to dam the Romaine River in an article published in the French daily Le Monde. The article sparked this reaction from Jean Charest, as quoted in the Gazette…

Jean Charest’s Legacy

fbristow — Thu, 28 May 2009 20:37:23 +0000

I have to ask myself if Jean Charest has ever heard of Maude Barlow, the co-author of “Blue Gold” who writes eloquently about the corporate theft of the world’s water. If he had, Charest might have thought twice before he proudly announced Quebec’s ‘blue-gold’ program of hydroelectric production (read about it in the Gazette). Then again, for all intensive purposes, isn’t that Charest’s plan? To convert Quebec’s rivers into reservoirs for the sake of cheap aluminum… What would Barlow do?

In other news… “There was something uncomfortably Kim Jong-il-ish about the massive “Great Builder of Quebec” billboards that provincial Liberals erected in honour of Jean Charest at their general council meeting last weekend. But the boards did serve to at least clarify what the third-term premier wants future generations of Quebeckers to remember about him…” Can you believe it? Read about Charest’s legacy of white elephants in the Globe and Mail

Meeting and Fiesta – June 1st

fbristow — Thu, 28 May 2009 02:57:54 +0000

You must have heard by now that work has begun to dam the Romaine River and you may be asking yourself, well, what does this mean for Alliance Romaine!? It means we are doubling our efforts and taking on the challenge! Maybe you are also worried about Jean Charest’s plans to fast-track work on the Little Mecatina, or his plans to build 8000mW of additional power on Quebec’s North-Shore… Come find out what Alliance Romaine’s next step in the battle for our rivers will be. Be it running a marathon, communications, advocacy, paddling, or activism, you will find exciting ways to link your interests with our efforts. Monday’s meeting will be a social fiesta, so bring your ideas and your love for Quebec’s rivers, and get ready to make a difference! Meeting on Monday, June 1st at 7PM, 4065 Oxford, near the Villa-Maria metro station. For more information, email us at info@allianceromaine.org

Run for the Romaine!

fbristow — Tue, 26 May 2009 22:57:48 +0000

Alliance Romaine is looking for committed runners to participate in a chain of marathons connecting the Rupert River, near James Bay, to the Romaine River, on the North Shore. The purpose of this campaign is to draw attention to the challenges facing Quebec’s wild rivers, and to press the Quebec government to halt construction of the hydroelectric complex on the Romaine.

The event will begin in early September, making publicity stops in towns and urban centres.

Participants will work in affinity groups, and should be willing to undergo a rigorous training programme, involving practise three times a week.

If you are interested, please contact Alliance Romaine at info@allianceromaine.org

We also invite interested runners to attend an upcoming slideshow presentation on the Romaine River (date to be announced), or any Alliance Romaine meeting.

Amir Khadir presents petition to National Assembly on behalf of Alliance Romaine

fbristow — Fri, 01 May 2009 18:24:05 +0000

Chris traveled to Québec City on behalf of Alliance Romaine and spoke to reporters at the National Assembly on thursday, April 23rd. The days events can be read on the National Assembly’s website.

More than 5500 citizens agree that the proposed Romaine River dams are unsustainable and unnecessary

fbristow — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:23:32 +0000

(Quebec, April 23, 2009)- Alliance Romaine, a grassroots environmental group protesting against the planned dams on the Romaine River, has collected over 5500 signatures of citizens who also believe that the Romaine River should not be damned. The petition, presented today to the National Assembly by Member Amir Khadir, is a clear demonstration of the outrage of citizens from across Quebec.

Signatures were collected from large and small cities alike, including Quebec City, Victoriaville, Trois Rivieres, Kuujjuaq and Ekuanitshit.

“On top of being a hydroelectric project which is too large and disruptive to be recognized as sustainable by such organizations as US Renewable Energy Production Incentive, the BAPE report clearly stated that further study was necessary to understand the great risks posed by the project,” said Chris Scott, spokesperson for Alliance Romaine.

“Line Beauchamp, Minister of Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks, is scheduled to give her formal opinion of the Romaine River project by the end of April,” said Fran Bristow, spokesperson for Alliance Romaine. “Her opinion must reflect the voices of this petition- the voices standing up for conservation not for development without demand.”

Through the Obama administration’s Green energy plan, large scale hydroelectric dams, like the one planned for the Romaine River, are not considered green, and will not be eligible for any subsidies.

“As we stated in our petition, it is essential that Quebec’s political authorities support and commit to a sincere long-term vision focusing on the Earth and its people rather than over-consumption and profit,” said Mr. Scott, “Quebec currently has a surplus of electricity, the US does not need or want our electricity, and Quebec will only try export this electricity to the detriment of the natural ecosystems and the local people of the North Shore.”

“Conservation programs are the key,” added Mr. Scott, “Mme Beauchamp must recognize the significant dissonance against destroying one of the last large rivers our beautiful province has. The Romaine River project must be cancelled.”

Monday, April 20th, 2PM

fbristow — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 00:20:09 +0000

Who Speaks for Our Rivers? The event was a great success, thanks to all those who came out and to all the presenters. Keep visiting this blog to find out about more exciting, upcoming events!

A story from Ekuanitshit

fbristow — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:22:29 +0000

Chris Scott brings us information from Ekuanitshit, one of the Innu communities on the Romaine River that will be most effected by the proposed dams. Read his article in the Mirror.