Nickel Belt News
Volume 58 Number 11
Friday, March 16, 2018
Thompson, Manitoba
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Wednesday, April 20, 2022
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Serving the Hub of the North since 1960
Volume 62 • Issue 16
Shamattawa First Nation chief Eric Redhead resigning to seek NDP candidacy for vacant Thompson MLA seat BY IAN GRAHAM
EDITOR@THOMPSONCITIZEN.NET
is now the Northern Regional Health Authority before moving on to a role as a crisis response co-ordinator for Keewatin Tribal Council and then as a Shamattawa-based employee of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak’s crisis response program. While living in Shamattawa, Redhead was elected to the First Nations’s council and is resigning during his second term as chief, but he says he was always interested in politics, remembering that he served as junior chief of Shamattawa while attending school there. “I’ve always gravitated towards politics for sure,” he told the Thompson Citizen Aril 18. Redhead says he thinks his
experience in First Nation politics will serve him well if he secures the NDP candidacy, which seems likely, as the nomination meeting is less than a week away and he is the only publicly declared nominee, as a result of former Thompson city councillor Oswald Sawh announcing his intention to seek the candidacy and then withdrawing shortly thereafter. “I thought there were some big shoes to be filled” as a result of Adams’s death, Redhead says. “And I thought I would be the person to fill those shoes.” Although it is a different political arena, Redhead believes that he knows what it takes to be successful, pointing to the efforts he made to
convince the federal government to send the military to aid Shamattawa during a time of crisis in the COVID-19 pandemic. “There was no protocol,” he recalls. “There were no steps to take. It was a lot of advocating and pushing, being consistent, because you see a need and you have to make sure to fulfill that need.” As a former frontline health care worker, Redhead has experience that relates to provincial politics. As a lifelong northerner, he also has firsthand knowledge of another important issue: highways. “It’s really unfortunate that the provincial government has frozen maintenance for highways for the next three years,” he said. “I think that’s
wrong. Our infrastructure is crumbling and we need a strong voice to make sure that the north gets its share and I believe I’m the right person to do that.” A date for the byelection had not yet been set as of April 18, but Manitoba NDP leader Wab Kinew told the Citizen last week that he believes it may take place in May, with that month basically being the campaign period. “We look forward to being able to put a strong candidate forward,” once the nomination process concludes, he said. Whether or not the province has announced a byelection date by the time the NDP nomination process concludes this weekend, Kinew says the party members in Thompson
Book a way to preserve and pass on memories of growing up in Churchill
The race to become the NDP party’s candidate in an upcoming byelection once again has an entrant. Eric Redhead is resigning as Shamattawa First Nation chief to seek the nomination to fill the vacancy created by the December 2021 highway accident death of former Thompson MLA Danielle Adams. Last week, Redhead resigned his post as acting grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs in place of Arlen Dumas in advance of announcing his provincial political ambitions. Redhead was born in Thompson and spent much of his early life here, working throughout his 20s for what
Thompson Citizen photo by Ian Graham Eric Redhead is seeking the Thompson NDP nomination. will probably not waste any time. “I think you’ll see us launch our local campaign and have all the Thompson NDP activists and supporters starting to canvas and get out in the community and surrounding areas and talk about our plan to help folks.”
City getting $3 million annually from Vale in lieu of property taxes over the next four years voluntary $600,000 addition more people at that time, satisfactory, considering tough on both the company mitted to Thompson for the that Vale ponied up. in 2018, as the smelter and refinery, that the 1956 agreement and the city. long term. The City of Thompson the city got $4.8 million. permanently closed in 2018, between the province and “A strong GIL contribu“Our operations have is getting slightly less from However, Vale is also were still in operation, as Inco, which established the tion benefits everyone,” she worked very hard to turn Vale in the 2022 to 2025 providing $2 million to- was Birchtree Mine, which mine and the community of said. “It helps us maintain around our business over grant-in-lieu agreement wards a new Thompson has been on care and main- Thompson, limits the city’s the services we have, renew the last few years and atwith the mining company aquatic centre to replace the tenance since late 2017. leverage and that the next our infrastructure and, of tracting the $150 million than it did in the previous Norplex Pool, which was Coun. Les Ellsworth, who mayor and council should course, to get a new pool investment for Phase 1 of one but the same annual permanently closed over led the city’s negotiating explore finding an alterna- built These things benefit the Thompson Mine Examount that it received in three years ago. In recent team, said convincing the tive way to tax Vale. One everyone, including Vale’s tension Project. This new each of the last two years. months, the company has company to maintain the of the terms of that agree- employees.” agreement and investment The agreement, approved also provided $150,000 to grant-in-lieu at $3 million ment is that no property of Vale Manitoba Oper- in the pool demonstrates our by council at their April 11 the city for the purchase of per year wasn’t easy and the mining company, “will ations head Gary Annett continued commitment to meeting, will see Vale pro- asset management software that council wished it could at any time be subject to said the company is com- the community.” vide $3 million per year to and $250,000 toward get- have gotten more. municipal, district, school the city in lieu of property ting homeless people off the “We went in asking a lot district or other local govtaxes, which the company streets by providing them more than we got,” he said, ernment assessment, taxes doesn’t pay because its temporary accommoda- crediting the strength of and rates of any nature or operations are outside of tions. With those, the total the city negotiating team’s kind whatsoever,” city limits. In a press release anamount of funding the city arguments with obtaining a Over four years, that’s is getting from the company better deal than it otherwise nouncing the approval of $12 million, $2.4 million over the next four years is might have. “If we had not the grant-in-lieu and Vale’s Nickel Belt News photo by Ian Graham EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION less than the city received roughly equaldirector to what it deMeulles done the has presentation contribution of $2 million Addictions Foundation of Manitoba northern Gisele written a that book about her experiences growing up, mostly in Churchill. Early Bird Membership will be over the previous four years was in the previous four. we did, we would be back toward a new pool, Mayor April 30th from noon to 2:00 pm at the Pro Shop. fromIAN 2018 to 2021. The city to here I’m tonight with tail was Colleen shething was swallow when people say A write five-year in ‘Oh, BY GRAHAM For all the harsh weather thingsagreement that you have just as bad,our right?’ notSmook a verysaid safe non corporateand memberships received $3 million each to place prior to pretty 2018 clear saw Ibetween legs looking glad recognizes EDITOR@THOMPSONCITIZEN.NET have all our these stories and to figure out. It’s dothat but Vale I jumped at it. I that ChurchillAllresidents the dangers of polar be offered at 20% discount. year in theshe’s lastnow twowritten years when Vale providing the city $6 Iatneed something else.”them for thought the need to keep investing in should just findwill Though I get through.” to capture that was exciting somewhere bears, deMeulles said if it ofbook that agreement and $3.6 million per year, its myCoun. Duncan Wong said until Thompson, evenlanded thoughand the easier to live. www.thompsongolfclub.com a about her experienDeMeulles saidthough she wrote grandchildren really the plane had been viable she would million in 2019 to a her operations employed many securingthey $12 will million was last several have been ces growing up inthanks Churchill, book, titled Whispers in because be lost if they startedyears throwing the “To say, ‘Those people have moved back to ChurchBY IAN GRAHAM
EDITOR@THOMPSONCITIZEN.NET
Addictions Foundation of Manitoba northern director Gisele deMeulles said writing wasn’t something she always thought she would do. “In my youth I never felt good at writing,” she said. “But when I moved to Thompson to get into the school of social work, at that point I had to write for university and realized, ‘Holy, I’m not bad at this, right?’ I certainly developed a lot of skill in university and came out of there with a very strong skill in my writing and confidence in my writing. I write very clear and that’s it. It’s there. Some people say it’s kind of blunt or direct. I don’t tend
the Wind: Stories from the North - Life in Churchill for a couple of reasons. “I just sort of thought, you know what, this history, this stuff that’s in my head, it’s going to be gone if I don’t write it down,” she said. “My kids are not going to get it if I don’t do it and it’s something I’ve always wanted my mom to do. My mom’s an elder and she’s an artist, she’s got so many wonderful stories because she always tells her stories at Parks Canada in Churchill and I’ve always hounded her, ‘Please, just put it on tape, I will write it for you because your story is going to be lost,’ and she’s never done it and I thought,
I don’t.” She also has a reputation as a storyteller herself. “I had such a varied history and I would tell people stories and they would go, ‘That’s not true, is it?’ I’d go, ‘Yeah it’s true.’ They’d go, ‘You didn’t do all that, did you? You’ve got to be really old.’ I was like, ‘No, actually I did all that before I was 27,’ and they went ‘What?’” Looking back, some of those experiences are things she might not do again. “I did some pretty bizarre stuff like fuel hauls into the high Arctic at -35,” said deMeulles. “It didn’t dawn on me until after. That was a very dangerous thing to do. Being on a plane full of fuel
fuel off and I realized, ‘Holy cats, I was probably sitting on a bomb.’” Another thing that spurred her on was the hard times facing Churchill since the Hudson Bay Railway suspended operations north of Gillam last spring. “It used to be a really thriving large community and it’s just dwindled down to such a small population now,” deMeulles says. Though she’s not there any longer, her parents and her sister and other family members still are. “My cousin owns the hardware store there,” she says. Because of that, deMeulles finds it hard to
choose to live there. They should just leave,’ is quite simplistic. It’s quite disrespectful. If we were in the same boat in another area I think we would scream about that so why don’t they have the option to do that? I think right now they’re feeling like they’re pawns in a political game and that’s really sad for them because I think the people of Churchill really want to thrive. They’ve built their worlds there. How would we feel if someone came to you and said, ‘I’m sorry, you have to leave your home community and we’re going to displace you somewhere else and all your loved ones and your history is gone?’”
ill in a heartbeat. “I miss the shoreline, I miss the rock, I miss the polar bears even though they’re very dangerous and I really miss the Hudson Bay,” she says. “When I go back home, standing on the Hudson Bay looking out on the bay, it just gives you an incredible sense. You feel so small and you feel great.” Now that she’s got one book under her belt, deMeulles says she may try to produce another. “I have another book in me,” she says. “It’s a darker story, more about personal growth and struggles. Maybe in the next five years it’s something I’ll focus on doing.”