Government support Manitoba Hydro initially planned a major hydro wire route through the proposed area called Bipole III. Just days before his retirement from office, Premier
Gary Doer announced that the government would donate $10 million to a trust fund for a UNESCO World Heritage site on the east side of Lake Winnipeg. The
NDP claimed that an east side Bipole III route would jeopardise the UNESCO site and claimed that a heritage site would benefit First Nations communities more. The NDP proposed a longer, more expensive, alternate line through the west of Manitoba to preserve the environmental integrity of the east side and to support the UNESCO site.
World Heritage Site Status In 2004, Parks Canada on behalf of the federal government added the project to Canada’s tentative list of potential World Heritage Sites, under criteria (v), (vii), (ix), and (x). The site was submitted for consideration in 2013. The
World Heritage Committee deferred inscription to give the nominators time to improve certain aspects of the bid, while also saying that the committee needed to improve the nomination process for mixed sites as there were currently structural problems in the process that made approving mixed nominations difficult. In 2016, following modification to the bid, focusing it on the Ojibwe cultural tradition of (keeping the land), the committee was set to inscribe the property on the list. However, Canada requested and received a deferral after the Pikangikum First Nation in Ontario withdrew its support. In 2018, the World Heritage Committee inscribed the site on the UNESCO World Heritage List at its 42nd session in
Manama,
Bahrain, with the participation of four of the five original First Nations. ==References==