Conservatives promise funds for northern ports, hydro projects

The Conservative Party is promising to "close the infrastructure gap" in the North and help pay for severalprojects if elected, including road and hydro links between Nunavut and Manitoba, a port in Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., and a clean energy project in Yukon.

None of the four projects highlighted in the party's platform are new ideas, and the Conservatives have not pledged any specific dollar amounts.

Deep water port atTuktoyaktuk

Prime Minister Stephen Harper was on hand in Inuvik, N.W.T., in 2014 as work began on the 138-kilometre Inuvik-to-Tuktoyaktukall-season highway, but he'd been voted out of office by the time the road opened in 2017.

Now his party says it's time to convert the harbour atTuktoyaktuk into a deep water port, as a way to boost oil and gas developmentas well as tourism in the region, and become a potential shipping hub.

The harbour was used extensively during the oil boom of the1970sand1980s, though it's shallow. A 2014 report says the harbour is too small to accommodate large vessels that deep sea exploration would bring, and so a deeper channel would need to be dredged.The report estimatedit would cost $100 million dollars over four years to dredge a 22-kilometre channel fromTuktoyaktuk'sharbour into the deeperwaters of the Beaufort Sea.

In 2018, the hamlet's then-mayor, Merven Gruben, andJackie Jacobson who wasn't an MLA at the timebut had been oneand has since become one again in 2019, traveled to Ottawa to pitch the port. Both said, at the time, that oil and gas work in the region would be back, though others dispute that idea.

Grays Bay Road and Port project

If the Grays Bay Road and Port project goes ahead, it will be the first road connecting Nunavut to the rest of Canada.

The 230-kilometre road would connect a proposed deep-water port at Grays Bay on the Northwest Passage between Bathurst Inlet and Kugluktuk, Nunavut to the winter road that services the N.W.T.'s diamond mines.

The project is being championed by the KitikmeotInuit Association (KIA), and in 2019 the federal Liberal government contributed $21.5 millionas an "initial investment."

That money would pay for "all those ducks you need to line up before you say, 'Ok,let's build it'," said Marc Garneau, who was the federal transportation ministerat the time.

Past estimatesfor thewhole project were around a half billion dollars.

The government of Nunavut along with KIA had earlier applied to Transport Canada for the half billion in funding but in 2018 the territorial government pulled out of the project and the funding was denied.

The Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre link project

TheKivalliq Hydro-Fibre link project would see the first land-based electrical transmission system connecting Nunavut to Manitoba. The project would also bring broadband internet service to several Nunavut communities (Arviat, Baker Lake, Chesterfield Inlet, Rankin Inlet and Whale Cove).

The Kivalliq Inuit Association is leading the project, and last year it signed a memorandum of understanding with the Canada Infrastructure Bank (C.I.B.). The federal Crown corporation agreed to contributeto the project by conducting a market analysis, and providing commercial and investment expertise.

In 2019, the Liberal government spent $1.6 million on a feasibility study for the project. Last spring, the Liberals pledged another $3 million for more feasibility workincluding data collection and consultations with Indigenous groups in Nunavut and Manitoba.

The Liberals' 2021 budget also highlighted the project as a potential beneficiary ofnew funding for "hydroelectricity and grid interconnection projects in the North." The budget promised $40.4 million over three years for such projects.

The NDP platform, meantime, promises "high-speed rural broadband to all communities in Canada without delay, and ensuring that reliable cell phone service is expanded to every area of Canada."

'Clean' power project in Yukon

The Conservatives' promise to fund a new 'clean' power project in Yukon is notably vague. The party platform says only that it will fund "alarge-scale project to provide clean power to the Yukon, developed in partnership with the Government of the Yukon."

Yukon Energy, the territory's power corporation,has faced a major increase in electrical demand in recent years, spurred by a growing population inthe territory and the number of new homes heated with electricity. For the past few winters, the company has been renting diesel generators from B.C. to meet demand.

In2019, the company bowed to public pressure and pulled the plug on aproposalto build a new 20 MW thermal power plant in Whitehorse.A year later, it presented a draft 10-year strategy laying out some renewable-energy alternatives that would require funding from Ottawa.

One of those ideas would see Yukon Energy source power from the Taku River Tlingit's hydro plant in Atlin, B.C. The First Nation is planning an expansion of that facility, and the Liberals' 2021 budget highlighted that project in announcing the $40.4 million for hydroelectricity projects.

The New Democrats' platformpromisesto establish a new "Canadian Climate Bank" to boost investment in renewable energy and "inter-connect power grids and introduce smart grid technology, to bolster Canada's energy security and distribute clean power across the country."

The Greens are promising "targeted, national infrastructure investments in renewable and efficient energy production."