News

The School of Public Policy
It’s September, it’s Canada, and that means winter is coming. And in Canada’s North, that means winter road season. The Northwest Territories (NWT), with an area of 1.3 million square km, has only 2,200 km of all-season highways, augmented by 1,435 km of public winter roads. Only 19 of 33 communities have year-round road access, and four communities have no road access at all. Lack of road access contributes to community isolation and high cost of living and renders much of the territory’s vast resources uneconomic.

The National Post

Trying to replicate southern gravel roads over the melting permafrost is a fool’s errand of the first order. Rig-mat roads are a more appropriate technology that is sustainable, flexible and affordable.

National Post

The notion of a pan-Canadian corridor dedicated to rail, power lines and pipelines has been around for at least half a century but it looks like it’s about to get a big publicity boost.

CBC News

The lead researcher for a proposed Northern Corridor across Canada says the project is "building momentum." Dr. Jennifer Winter, a researcher with the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy, said she and her colleagues are pitching a national right-of-way that could be used for road, rail, pipeline, electrical transmission and communication infrastructure.

High North News

An ambitious infrastructure project designed to better integrate Canada’s North could bring substantial benefits—economic and otherwise.

The Hill Times

A dedicated trade corridor for the North and its closest neighbours would spur economic development for the country's most remote regions, say Tory politicians who are frustrated with the government's refusal to support a proposal that already has the endorsement of a Senate committee.

iPolitics

School of Public Policy researchers Kent Fellows and Robert Mansell reveal how a “inadequate infrastructure … is choking off Canada’s north,” as detailed in a new report that, as per the advisory, will offer a “deep dive” into the costs — to indigenous [sic] peoples and communities, territorial economies and Canada itself.

The Globe and Mail
Not since Sir John A. Macdonald's National Policy in the 1870s has Canada had such an opportunity to build such a monumental infrastructure project with the potential to transform the country's economy.

Daily Commercial News

A Senate committee has issued a report supporting the creation of a Northern Corridor, a multi-billion-dollar infrastructure proposal to establish a 7,000-kilometre multi-modal right-of-way across Canada’s mid north. If developed it could unlock resource wealth, transport existing products to market and create a breakthrough in living conditions and opportunities for northern First Nations people.

CBC Radio

The province is looking at developing a multi-model transportation strategy for northern Ontario. Kent Fellows, a researcher with the University of Calgary who specializes in transportation, weighs in.