east vs. West

East Vs. West
New Transmission Line East of Lake Winnipeg or West.

1. Money

The world is all about money. When doing big projects like these, a large sum of money needs to be including in the project.
If we were to build a new transmission line down east of Lake Winnipeg, the route that we plan to build is not as long as the west. We’ll be cutting down less of the boreal forest on the east, compared to if it were to be built on the west side of Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba Conservative Leader Hugh McFayden said. The total route costs approximately 1.9 billion, 14 percent less than building the transmission line down the west side of Lake Winnipeg, costing up to 2.2 billion. We save 300 million. THAT 300 million could go to health care, educations or other direct benefits for future generations.

2. Peoples opinions/votes and First Nations

When we build this new transmission line, obviously people that have hydro is affected in the project also. We’ll be paying more after its built. Your hydro will increase slightly if to be built on the east side, but to build it on the west, the price will be greater since the tranmission line would be longer, wasting more energy. So if we were to build it down the west, people will be paying a lot more than on the east.
Also, various sites said that the first nationals on the east side did not want the transmission line interfering with their area, but cbc.ca indicating that they DO want the transmission line on their side. Why? Because the east side say that their area is being isolated and people living there are mostly in poverty. They have the highest suicide rate across Canada. The lack basic living standards. By bringing the hydro line to the east, it’ll increase jobs to some first nations, and hopefully increasing developments in the future.
68% viewers of the CFIB (Canadian federation of Independence Business) voted yes for building the hydro transmission line done the east. That’s more than half.

3. Economy

By building the transmission line down the east side of Lake Winnipeg, we’ll be cutting less trees than the west. By having it down the east side, the transmission line would not be as long as the west side meaning we’ll not be wasting as much energy flowing through the transmission line.

On the west side, a lot of the boreal forest HAS been cut down leaving less and less each time, environmentalists would like to maintain the forest on the west side since a large amount of the area has been cut down by road networks, hydro development etc. The east has a lot of boreal forests, so by cutting down not as much as the west side wouldn’t cause much damage since they’ve maintained such a well number of trees.
Also, Westside route places all of the main hydrolines closer together causing a higher risk of disrupted service by one disaster.