A Senate committee is proposing a 7,000-kilometre highway
for transportation east and west across Northern Canada.
The
Senate Committee on Banking Trade and Commerce released its report this week
likening the project to the Canadian Pacific Railway that nearly bankrupted
Canada to build from coast to coast as part of the Confederation deal to bring
British Columbia into the fold.
The senators
say a start should be made by paying $5 million to the University of
Calgary’s School of Public Policy and the Montreal-based Center for
Interuniversity Research and Analysis of Organizations to research
the project.
The report
says the corridor will help Canada diversify its foreign markets by allowing
companies to ship their goods to tidewater ports in the North.
It will
also spur economic growth, new job creation and provide benefits to Indigenous
peoples and other northern residents.
Because
the proposed national corridor would cross the traditional territories of a
large number of Indigenous communities, the government must ensure they are
actively involved from the beginning, the committee said.
Their
involvement in the corridor will be fundamental to its successful development.
In
particular, the committee met with the First Nations Major Projects Coalition
and the First Nations Financial Management Board who are in agreement with the
plan as proposed by the committee.
“This
bold and innovative project would create countless employment and economic
opportunities for Indigenous communities, including through construction jobs,
supplying builders and the acquisition of equity stakes in infrastructure
projects,” the senators said in a news release about their proposal.
Other
potential benefits of a national corridor include decreased traffic on southern
highways and railways. A corridor would also help Canada assert its
Arctic sovereignty.
