The Time Is Now for a Northern Development Corridor

If we want to do something really positive and visionary that will benefit the next generation of Canadians and several more generations to follow, we need politicians to get serious about establishing a northern development corridor.

I spoke with Manitoba MLA Stephen Fletcher this week. Fletcher was the first to put this idea on my radar screen five years ago when he was a federal Member of Parliament. Newly elected as a provincial PC in his home province he is already thinking of ways to boost the Manitoba economy. The formula is the same for them as it is for us: develop infrastructure that allows products and resources to get to new markets. There is the potential for a healthy quid pro quo in establishing a development corridor from Fort McMurray, Alberta, through La Loche, Saskatchewan and on to Churchill, Manitoba. We could build a pipeline to Churchill (on the Hudson Bay) to be loaded onto tankers for export to world markets, and in return we could buy Manitoba’s green hydro-electric power. In the meantime, new port infrastructure, rail lines and highways could open up the entire route for every commodity in the Prairie provinces. It’s a win all around. But it’s not just Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba that could benefit from this idea.

The School of Public Policy released a report this week that makes the case for a Northern Corridor right-of-way stretching from the Port of Prince Rupert, BC, through Fort McMurray, around the Ontario ring of fire, and on through QC to the coast in Labrador. There would be spur lines, one to Churchill and another up to the Arctic Ocean through the Mackenzie Valley. All told it would be a 7,000 km right-of-way, established collaboratively by all levels of government and First Nations communities. Once established it would become a destination for new development of road, rail, pipeline, transmission and communication infrastructure designed to move all products to all three coasts.

There is even an environmental case to be made for developing new infrastructure this way: it would reduce the impact on the environment by concentrating development along a relatively narrow corridor. The alternative, allowing proponents to develop their own projects independently using multiple routes, would be more energy intensive, cross more waterways, disrupt more habitat and have an even greater environmental impact.

Every Canadian province faces challenges developing their northern resources and fully unlocking their economic potential. The idea of a northern corridor has been around since the 1960s. Let’s not wait another 50 years to get started on it.