Manitoba Cautious, Saskatchewan More Open to Smith’s Proposal for Port of Churchill

The Canadian icebreaker Amundsen sits in the Port of Churchill on July 2, 2018. The Canadian Press/John Woods

SASKATOON—Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s proposal to ship more Western Canadian products out of the Port of Churchill in northern Manitoba is being met with caution by the government of Manitoba, while the Saskatchewan government appears more open to the idea.

“I will tell you there are more pressing things for us to be dealing with right now,” Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson said at a press conference on Oct. 31, although she did not rule out future discussions.

A statement to the Epoch Times from Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Highways said the province “supports the safe and efficient movement of goods across Canada and to our many customers all over the globe.”

“All provinces are working to strengthen existing corridors and identify potential expansion,” the statement said. “The province has always worked well with its colleagues in Alberta and Manitoba.”

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe told reporters on Oct. 31 he’s supportive of efforts to expand services in Churchill, CBC reported.

In a letter dated Oct. 24, Smith asked the premiers of Saskatchewan and Manitoba for a meeting in the town of Churchill to discuss working together “to push for a renewed look at the Port of Churchill,” along with the possibility of pipelines to the port.

The port, which sits on the edge of Hudson Bay, is Canada’s only Arctic port serviced by a rail line.

Smith’s letter says because of the war in Ukraine, the world needs access to responsibly produced and affordable energy and food.

“In my view the federal government is generally unmoved by the urgency of this global crisis,” she wrote. “The purpose of the meeting would be to discuss how our three provinces could work together to address energy and food security issues, and in particular opportunities at the Port.”

A similar idea was proposed by federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre in August, when he was running for the leadership.

“As part of a plan to end overseas oil within 5 years, a Poilievre government will provide fast approvals to allow the Port of Churchill to export responsibly-produced Canadian energy & create more paycheques for our people,” he wrote on Twitter.

Professor Ken Coates, an expert on northern development and innovation, says Smith’s proposal has merit.

“I think this is a project that has considerable potential,” said Coates, whose expertise includes a focus on aboriginal and northern issues as director of the Indigenous Affairs Program for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

“We need more capacity to get Canadian products to the ocean. We’ve got similar problems with wheat and lentils, and pulse crops and things of that sort coming out of western Canada. And what’s amazing is as a country, we’ve paid so little attention to this. There’s been staggering backlogs,” he said in an interview.

“If we were any other country in the world, we'd be really upset about this. But unfortunately, our national government doesn’t think very much about Western issues.”

Oil Pipelines ‘Fraught With Emotional Challenges’

Coates believes besides freight and grain, there is potential for Churchill to be used as a hub for exporting natural gas, although he’s doubtful about oil.

“If you focused on natural gas as a possibility, I think the chances are very substantial,” he said.

“I think the whole business of oil pipelines is fraught with a whole bunch of emotional challenges that are far, far greater than they are for natural gas.”

The Port of Churchill has been in operation since the early 1930’s, but because the rail line to the port is built over rough northern terrain, it has encountered problems. In 2017 the line flooded and was out of service for more than a year. In August this year, the Manitoba and federal governments announced $147.6 million over two years to maintain and upgrade the Hudson Bay Railway.

The money is going to the Arctic Gateway Group, a consortium of indigenous and northern communities that now owns the port and the railway that leads to it. AGG has done significant work on the rail line this year, but there is still more to do in 2023.

Although freight and passengers have been travelling over the line, grain shipments have been paused. In a news release last November, AGG said the pause in shipping grain was because “our aim is to fix the tracks permanently and pausing grain shipments until that’s done will ensure that we have a permanent long-term solution that will make HBR safe, sustainable, and profitable.”

Smith sent her letter on Oct. 24, and on Nov. 1 Saskatchewan introduced the Saskatchewan First Act, which is designed to assert provincial jurisdiction over natural resources.

Coates said the two moves are simply different sides of the same coin.

“Federal government overreach for a number of years, particularly on the environmental front, particularly on the resource development front, [has] had a massive, under-documented impact on the economies of Alberta and Saskatchewan,” he said.

“And now they’re determined to push back and they’re going to push back really, really hard.”