Manitoba redirecting hydro exports from U.S. to Canadian projects By: Carol Sanders Posted: 12:53 PM CDT Monday, Apr. 14, 2025 Last Modified: 6:51 PM CDT Monday, Apr. 14, 2025 Updates

Manitoba Hydro is about to redirect power it has been exporting to the United States and send it to Nunavut and Western Canada, instead.

Premier Wab Kinew signed orders in council directing the Crown utility not to renew two contracts totalling 500 megawatts of power with Northern States Power that are set to expire next month.

The action means 50 megawatts will be sent to Nunavut and 450 to areas west of Manitoba.

“Everyone’s been watching what’s happening across the country and thinking a lot about Canadian sovereignty,” Kinew said at a midday news conference Monday.

“Manitoba has a wealth of hydroelectric resources and we should use them as a province to light up the North, to light up Western Canada and to help us build trade corridors. We’re looking for opportunities to make our economy stronger right across the True North, strong and free.”

The move comes as Canada and the U.S. are embroiled in a cross-border trade war precipitated by President Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on Canadian imports and his repeated remarks about annexing the country to make it the 51st American state.

Kinew’s directive follows a pre-election announcement on March 21 by Manitoba Liberal MP and Northern Affairs Minister Dan Vandal committing an additional $2.8 million in federal funding — on top of $11.6 million provided earlier — for the Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre Link.

The Inuit-owned Nukik corporation has announced that in 2028 it wants to start building a 1,200-kilometre, 150-megawatt transmission line with fibre-optic cabling that will connect Manitoba’s grid to the Kivalliq region of Nunavut by 2032.

Vandal called it a “nation-building project” that would take five communities and at least one gold mine off expensive diesel, deliver high-speed internet to the region and cut the risk of fuel spills in communities and Arctic waters.

Kinew said representatives from Nunavut will be in Winnipeg Wednesday to sign a deal with the province for the Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre Link to deliver hydroelectric power and telecommunications infrastructure to northern communities and create economic opportunity by powering mines.

“We’re showing that we’re serious, bringing a tangible commitment to standing up one of these trade corridors,” the premier said.

Both Liberal Leader Mark Carney and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre “have made clear they’re looking for nation-building projects,” Kinew said.

“We’re showing that we’re serious, bringing a tangible commitment to standing up one of these trade corridors.”–Premier Wab Kinew

“I don’t want Manitoba to be at the back of the line. Exporting is great for the environment because it displaces diesel generators. It’s great for Manitoba because it allows us to find a new export market for our hydroelectricity. It’s great for Canada because it brings on board more housing, more mining and more industrial opportunities in both Manitoba and in one of the northern territories.”

It will show European Union ambassadors for Spain, Germany and Estonia visiting Manitoba this week that the province can “play nice” with its neighbours, said the premier, who will be their host at the Legislative Building Tuesday morning.

Manitoba Hydro said Monday that it’s too early to provide details about how the Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre Link) would work.

“We look forward to working with the stakeholders and government to explore how this vision becomes reality,” spokesman Peter Chura said.

The corporation has several ongoing power sale agreements with U.S. customers, Chura noted.

Two of three agreements signed in May 2010 with Northern States Power — part of Xcel Energy — to supply up to 850 megawatts of hydroelectric power from Manitoba each year until 2025 are not being renewed.

One 350 megawatt “seasonal diversity exchange” with Manitoba Hydro is, however, being renewed, Chura said. Exchanges allow utilities to share surplus power during off-peak seasons when demand peaks at different times. Demand in Manitoba peaks in winter while demand for some U.S. utilities peaks in summer.

The value of the contracts is confidential, commercial information, Chura said.

Critics want to know how Manitoba Hydro can afford to expand transmission lines when it’s nearly $25 billion in debt and needs $31 billion to upgrade existing equipment and infrastructure.

“I have a lot of questions on the financial implications of what this means,” Progressive Conservative finance critic Lauren Stone said Monday. She pointed Manitoba Hydro’s debt and its application to the Public Utilities Board for a 3.5 per cent rate increase in each of the next three years.

“Manitobans are going to be seeing an 11 per cent increase over the next three years. I think (Kinew) needs to be candid with Manitoba.”–PC finance critic Lauren Stone

“It really doesn’t sound like (Kinew) thought through what those cost implications are. Manitobans are going to be seeing an 11 per cent increase over the next three years. I think (Kinew) needs to be candid with Manitoba.”

Stone (Midland) said she had no problem with Manitoba Hydro repatriating U.S. “legacy contracts” in favour of domestic contracts.

The value of the U.S. contracts aren’t made public but they’re worth more than domestic agreements, said University of Winnipeg political science professor Malcolm Bird.

“The problem here is that the domestic sale of power earns Hydro less cash than the exports to the United States,” said Bird, who studies Crown corporations, noting no one from the utility was at the news conference.

“The premier is making a pretty substantial announcement that’s going to have, I’m assuming, pretty significant effects on Hydro and its books,” Bird said.

“If I was on the board, I might have some really, really, really significant concerns about this because Hydro’s in a real jam. It has massive debt, it has aging infrastructure, its rates are capped and controlled and its operational decisions are significantly politicized.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca