Sky-Deer Presented Today at the National Assembly on Bill 13
Written by Jeremy Zafran on 13 March 2023
Ohén:ton Í:iente ni Ratitsénhaienhs Kahsennenhawe Sky-Deer and Eric Doucet of MCK Legal Services were in Quebec City where they presented on Bill 13 to the National Assembly. That is the Bill proposed for the adoption of the Law respecting the Hertel-New York Interconnection Line. Through the Horizon Kahnawà:ke Hydro-Québec Limited Partnership, the MCK will become joint owners of a 58-KM portion of the transmission line along with Hydro-Québec. Sky-Deer on the purpose of the presentation today:
“It was for Bill13, it’s a law respecting the Hertel-New York Interconnection Line. Basically what I did, I did a presentation to the Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries, Energy and Natural Resources. So I had a 45-minute timeframe basically to give an overview, introduction of myself, the community the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke, who we are in terms of the background and all of the discussions that we’ve had with Hydro-Quebec about this projects since 2018, when it was the late Grand Chief Joseph Tokwiro Norton who basically said that if Hydro is going to do any projects that go through our historical land base that it’s going to be required for us to be actual partners.”
The Bill was created to allow Hydro-Quebec to enter into the partnership agreements with the MCK aimed at facilitating the transfer of electricity to New York City through the construction of a cross-border transmission line from Hydro-Québec’s Hertel Substation to Champlain, NY and the Champlain-Hudson Power Express to Astoria in Queens.
