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Grabbing Arctic controls Harper showers north with development dollars; no mention of MGP Gary Park For Petroleum News
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has just spent a week traversing the Canadian Arctic, seizing every chance he could for photo-ops as he took the controls of a Canadian Armed Forces helicopter, submarine and frigate.
“I really enjoy these trips north,” he told regional politicians and supporters in Whitehorse. “It’s an opportunity to send a signal to the rest of the country of the growing influence of our northern frontier.”
In the process, he released C$50 million in federal money to set the newly created Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency — CanNor — on the path to bolstering growth in aboriginal communities by selecting and coordinating infrastructure projects and helping the region adjust to changing economic and environmental conditions.
He also dropped C$71 million into the Yukon’s C$160 million Mayo B hydropower plant which will help the territory reduce its dependency on diesel fuel for electricity and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent from current levels after it comes on stream in 2013.
While carrying the distinct smell of an election-style swing, the visit further reinforced what Harper calls “the most ambitious northern agenda in Canadian history” — certainly the most ambitious in more than 50 years.
He said the days of development decisions affecting the Arctic region being made in Ottawa “are passed … with the creation of CanNor our government wants to empower northerners and ensure that this region’s unique challenges are addressed with input from those right here with their boots on the ground.”
The objective, he said, is to “have lots of intelligence on local priorities when the agency makes its decisions.”
Sovereignty also an issue Harper also hammered home his own resolve to press Canada’s Arctic sovereignty claims.
“We know the gaze of other nations is increasingly focused on our Arctic,” he said.
“By working to reach this region’s full potential, including its full economic potential, we are strengthening its people and we are strengthening the sovereignty of our country.”
He said his government “views Canada as a country that stretches from coast to coast to coast (Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic) and our economic action plan is backing up this northern vision with real action.”
To that end, the government is spending C$25 million on a new small craft harbor at Pangnirtung, a remote village of 1,300 in Nunavut, which Harper said is an important component of Canada’s northern strategy.
He said the facility will help support a turbot fishery that Ottawa believes represents an excellent opportunity for economic development, supported by scientific research and resource management.
Some of the money will also be spent updating hydrographic charts to aid safe navigation in the area, copying the Russians who have detailed charts for most of their Arctic coastline, and establishing Canada’s claims to control waterways in the north.
Training program announced Harper and the leaders of the three territories — Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut — also announced a new C$36.5 million labor agreement to finance skills training for workers in the north and ensure aboriginals and northern residents are the first people hired when jobs become available.
“We do not want a transient economy here,” he said. “We do not want an economy primarily fueled by people who come here, take resources out of the ground, then leave and the resources and money scatters elsewhere.”
And that was as close as Harper came to mentioning the Mackenzie Gas Project, once held up as a rich source of jobs, investment and revenues for the north and the first step toward opening up a new oil and gas basin.
But, for all the positive comments over the years from Harper and Environment Minister Jim Prentice about the importance of the MGP, the fiscal agreements that are needed to move the project forward have been stalled, pending regulatory decisions.
Those delays have resulted in concerns about the economics of Arctic gas development as shale gas discoveries have pushed U.S. gas reserves over 2,000 trillion cubic feet.
However, there was a shred of hope for Arctic oil and gas development in Harper’s promise to speed up promised cash for highway improvements, which is part of a pledge to invest C$140 million over seven years on roads and new airport terminals.
Inuvik Mayor Derek Lindsay told reporters he welcomed the federal decision to allocate the lion’s share of the highway funding to the Dempster Highway.
He said that is an indication the government believes a Mackenzie gas pipeline will see increased traffic volumes on the highway.
Lindsay had previously urged Harper to use whatever federal influence was available to advance the work of the Joint Review Panel, which is dealing with environmental; and socioeconomic issues, and “make the MGP happen.”
Northwest Territories Premier Roland Lloyd told the Northern News Services that although nothing new emerged from his talks with Harper the importance of the MGP pipeline and highway, along with hydroelectric development, was discussed.
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