At an executive meeting held on July 11, the ALMS executive passed a motion to delay the Annual General Meeting to May, 2021.
The uncertainty of rules of assembly in response to the covid pandemic made the decision necessary. Holding the AGM in May 2021 gives the meeting heightened significance as it coincides with the 10-year anniversary of the flood of 2011.
In the ebb and flow of changing times since the evacuation of members and destruction of property along the shores of Lake Manitoba, this will be a time to reflect. We will be inviting members to share recollections of that time and have research articles posted to remind us of the lead up to the event and consequences of mismanagement by the government of the day.
We bear witness to the ineptitude of both levels of government to conduct an environmental assessment necessary to licence the project before us now. While access to the Province has improved from the Ashton era, little progress has been made. The Federal response to our organization has been nearly non-existent.
Our members have borne witness to political photo ops announcing funding and the details of the project. We have travelled to numerous open house information sessions. We have discovered the ‘political-speak’ that turns a one-year environmental assessment into two years and counting.
Many feel that trust was broken by government to those of us who have raised properties and rebuilt homes that meet the new post-flood standard. In good faith members did the hard work, in many cases drew down their retirement funds and put in the sweat equity required to bring back their community. The promise of protection and lake management is unfulfilled and breaks the faith put in our governments.
Some members soldier on with the memory of friends unable and in some cases unwilling to commit to the promise of politicians. Many of us grieve friends, family and neighbors who have passed on in the intervening years, denied the chance to recapture the beauty of life at the lake.
It is a credit to the combined will of our members that the organization continues. It is shameful that two levels of government continue to dicker and bicker as the clock ticks.
The executive continues to believe that Lake Manitoba and our way of life is well worth a determined effort to have our precious resource managed responsibly.
-Jack King, President