Federal commitment to build Mackenzie Valley Highway essential to attracting investment, NWT Premier says

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All-season 800-kilometre gravel road would connect highways to Arctic Ocean with system running to southern Canada

A federal commitment to fund the construction of the Mackenzie Valley Highway is essential to making Canada’s North more attractive to investors and could be the region’s last chance to unlock its economic potential, Northwest Territories Premier R.J. Simpson says.

The proposed highway, first envisioned in the 1950s, would be an 800-kilometre, all-season gravel route that connects a highway system extending to Southern Canada with northern highways leading to the Arctic Ocean, without having to detour through B.C. and Yukon or travel a system of ice roads.

Last week’s federal budget earmarked $187-million to launch a project manager to lead the initiative, and Ottawa has proposed to fully fund the construction of the highway, estimated to cost $3.5-billion, as well as some continuing maintenance.

The route is expected to create a more dependable flow of supplies to remote Northern communities, and allow families to travel by land in and out of the region year-round.

“It’s going to change people’s lives,” Mr. Simpson said in a Tuesday interview at an infrastructure conference in Toronto organized by the Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there were tears when people read the federal budget.”

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It is also expected to change the equation for investors when they look at resource exploration, mining or infrastructure investments in the Northwest Territories, offering a cheaper, land-based way to access the region without resorting to charter flights and helicopters.

“For investors, one of the big barriers that we’ve had is a lack of infrastructure,” he said. “It just makes everything too expensive.”

But Mr. Simpson said that the territory has to move quickly to capitalize on a generational opportunity to build infrastructure that makes a new set of economic opportunities possible before the current burst of political will wanes.

مطلع المقال، مقتطف من The Globe and Mail (Report on Business). لقراءة المقال كاملًا، افتحه على موقع الناشر.