Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Oct. 22nd, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Let's get started. Our guests have come in. They've travelled a long way, and we're fascinated to hear their stories.

You're at the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs of the Parliament of Canada. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) we are doing a study on northern infrastructure projects and strategies.

Before we get started, we want to recognize that we are on the unceded territory of the Algonquin people. It is a process of recognition of our heritage, our history, and our goal of truth and reconciliation.

You'll have 10 minutes to present, whether you're the sole presenter or you're sharing time. That's up to you. I will give you signals when you're getting close to your limit. Try to keep it under 10 minutes so we don't have to get that close. After the presentations, we'll do rounds of questioning from members of Parliament.

First, I want to welcome a person I've worked with for many years, the mayor of the town of Churchill, Michael Spence.

Welcome to the committee.

[Michael Spence, Mayor, Town of Churchill]

Thank you. I am honoured to address the committee this afternoon.

As mayor of the town of Churchill, I am keenly aware of the importance of northern infrastructure projects and strategies. It is vitally important that infrastructure in the north be improved to meet the needs of residents, local governments, and business in the Arctic and sub-Arctic. We have been part of the emerging federal government Arctic policy framework. Actually, the first hearing in our community was held about a year ago. Later today, I'll be presenting to the Senate Special Committee on the Arctic. I am looking forward to that.

As you know, Churchill has had a long history of working with Inuit from the Keewatin, which is now the Kivalliq region of Canada. The Inuit have lived at and near Churchill for thousands of years, and continue to do so today. For us as a sub-Arctic community, this is an important part of our history and Canadian history.

Churchill was part of the Northwest Territories until 1911. Churchill itself was the administrative capital of the Keewatin district of the NWT until the early 1970s. In fact, students from the region came to Churchill for their high school. Our hospital continues to serve the region.

Resupply for the region came almost exclusively from Churchill through the Hudson Bay Railway and the port for several decades, a long-standing connection. As a sub-Arctic port, rail line terminal and airport, Churchill shares common goals with our Nunavut neighbours for developing Arctic infrastructure and a strong Arctic economy, while protecting the environment and preserving the Arctic biodiversity. Our infrastructure can continue to serve a regional purpose and contribute to a more prosperous Arctic. That's our goal.

As most committee members are aware, Churchill recently faced its most challenging time with the loss of the rail and the layoff of port workers. However, about a month ago, on August 31, the federal government announced a major investment to the Churchill port, marine tank farm, and railway.

I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge this significant and strategic investment by the federal government into our region. It allowed the transfer of these assets to the new ownership, called the Arctic Gateway Group, a joint local and private sector co-ownership group. This is a historic partnership that will truly lead to greater prosperity for our region.

Immediately following the acquisition, repairs to the rail line were initiated, and we are now in the final stages of finishing the repairs. We anticipate the first train into our community hopefully within two weeks. Our rail line and port can serve the broader Arctic community through resupply. They have in the past, and we look forward to re-establishing important relationships.

Along with the only rail line that reaches the Arctic, our marine tank farm and our port, the Churchill airport is a critical part of the supply chain and already has some major assets. It was built as a military airstrip and can handle the largest aircraft on the planet. Currently, it is underutilized, and it has great potential to serve as a seamless partner with the rail line to ship goods across the north.

We began discussions with the federal government over expanded use of the airport and tying it to the port and rail line as part of the efforts to create a true Arctic gateway. We will position the airport to take on an expanded mandate to serve the greater needs of the Arctic, and we look forward to discussions with leaders and residents of the north regarding the Churchill airport initiative.

We want to partner on further investments linking our airport to the existing infrastructure of our port and rail line. It only makes sense to maximize this infrastructure for the benefit of all Arctic communities. We see this as a new strategic investment. In this, you'll have climate-controlled warehousing; linking railway tracks directly to the tarmac, creating an integrated supply chain; and the installation of specialized off-loading equipment.

Churchill can play an important role in further reducing food insecurity in the north through investments to bring resupply costs down.

The Hudson Bay regional round table, which consists of the governments of Manitoba and Nunavut, the seven Kivalliq hamlets in Nunavut, the towns of Churchill and Gillam, the Sayisi Dene First Nation and the Fox Lake Cree Nation, has worked to promote regional interests and development. We have held meetings in Manitoba and Nunavut on a variety of joint initiatives.

One of the top priorities has been the need to replace diesel use in the Kivalliq communities. In 2014, following a Hudson Bay regional round table proposal, a scoping study was initiated for a hydroelectric transmission line from northern Manitoba to the communities and mines in the Kivalliq district. This followed the 1999 study by Manitoba Hydro. The scoping study found that there was a strong economic and environmental case to be made for the transmission line, which would bring clean, reliable and affordable energy and fibre optics to the Kivalliq region.

The Kivalliq Inuit Association has taken that report to the next step and has made major progress in advancing that project. We support their efforts to get the transmission line and fibre optics project funded and built. This is a nation-building project that will contribute to economic growth and clean energy, as well as vastly improve Internet access to the Kivalliq region.

The federal government has taken a leadership role in efforts to reduce the use of fossil fuels.

Churchill is uniquely placed to contribute to Arctic and sub-Arctic science and to protecting our environment. The Churchill Northern Studies Centre has a strong reputation for its work on researching these issues. The Churchill marine observatory, for which construction will be completed next year, will be the only such project in the world carrying out specific studies on climate change. Churchill's other infrastructure, including the health centre, was built to serve the region and beyond.

We remain an international destination for tourism as the polar bear capital of the world, while expanding our markets for summer beluga and birding tours, and the winter northern lights.

In conclusion, we are proud to work with our Arctic partners on closing the infrastructure gaps in the north to promote clean growth and benefits to the Arctic and all of Canada.

I want to thank the committee for inviting me here this afternoon. I am confident that you will bring forward recommendations on northern infrastructure that will help advance economic development for the Arctic and Arctic communities. The federal government has the ability to unlock the potential of our region by supporting the power line and fibre optic project into Kivalliq, and by supporting our initiative to link our rail lines to the airport.

It's critically important to indicate that these assets are situated in our community, but they are assets that belong to the region. Let me be clear on that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to the next presenters. They have come all the way down from Tuktoyaktuk.

Have you driven down? We're excited about your new road. It's a long way.

[Merven Gruben, Mayor, Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk]

We drove on part of it.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Welcome to Ottawa and to our committee.

You have up to 10 minutes to present. Please go ahead.

[Merven Gruben]

I'd like to thank you all for this opportunity to speak again on our cause. There are a couple of issues I wanted to address: our deep-sea port for our community of Tuk, and our natural gas location for the region. It's not necessarily just for Tuk. If you look at our community of Tuk, it's right on the Arctic Ocean.

First of all, sorry, I'm Merven Gruben, mayor of Tuktoyaktuk.

I'll go backwards here again. It's kind of déjà vu. In 2012, I was invited to come here and speak to a panel as well. I think it was just about the same people, or the same panel. We did such a good presentation in the fall of 2012, that in February 2013 our friend Mr. Flaherty—rest in peace—announced in the budget that we were going to get $199 million for our highway. That was the beginning of our Tuk-Inuvik highway. I don't know why we call it Tuk-Inuvik highway. I like to call it the highway to Tuk. It's just the finishing off of the Dempster Highway, the Diefenbaker highway. That's what it should be, the road to resources.

Anyway, we got this highway built, and unbelievably, this year we had 5,000 people come to Tuk—5,000 tourists. On a good year, we get maybe 2,500. You know, everybody wants to jump in the ocean, of course. It's just a total game-changer.

Yes, I hope to get the same response as we got in 2013 from the federal government here.

As you know—or you might not know—the Mackenzie River is continually lowering. The water level is getting lower and lower, and it's getting more unpredictable to ship. The times of the season when we can ship are getting later and later. You can't ship too late because the water goes down too low.

So we finished with the highway to Tuk, and then what I proposed to the GNWT and a lot of the powers that be was that you can truck anything from the south to Tuk all winter, stockpile all the material you need there. We have the infrastructure for storage and the fuel tank storage, and the land available, but we really need to develop our docking facilities and possibly dredge the entranceway a bit into the harbour.

One big advantage I propose is that, if we haul in the stuff all winter on the roads, then we can ship out a lot earlier to the communities. Paulatuk didn't get its sealift this year. They're flying everything in right now. Also Cambridge Bay and Kugluktuk, they didn't get all of their shipment. Paulatuk didn't get anything at all. They didn't get any of their fuel, none of their food. Now they're flying their stuff in, right now. Just imagine what that's going to cost at the end of the day, what the government is going to pay at the end of the day. It's going to be coming from us.

You know, it would make all the sense in the world to work along with it, but it's falling on deaf ears.

I was just in Anchorage, speaking to a similar panel on expanding the Tuk port and trying to get the Coast Guard presence, talking about building up a bigger Coast Guard presence. You know the Northwest Passage is right there. It's at our front door. You can see the ships coming and going along, and we have nothing in the north, in our region, that's there for support, should anything go wrong. We have increased cruise ships passing. We have increased pleasure boats back and forth, and yet we're not prepared. You look at Trump. He's trying to open up the ANWR, and that's right next door to us. If something happens, we're not prepared. We're not ready.

I've been calling on the Coast Guard for many years to develop our region, just in case something happens, and yet they don't do anything. Actually, they did. They built the Coast Guard office in Inuvik, which is 80 miles to the south, nowhere near the coast, and it doesn't help anybody. As I said, I was just in Anchorage, and none of the Canadian Coast Guard was there. We had Coast Guard U.S.A. and all the national defence from the Americas. Some people from Ottawa were there as well, and I met with them. We were all shaking our heads at why the Coast Guard was not there. They were invited.

Things like that have to change. You know, you're putting Coast Guard boats all over, in different parts of the eastern Arctic, that are too far to be effective, to be helping anybody. So they have to give their heads a shake and come to work with us before something really drastic happens.

I was talking to Michael McLeod, our MP for the western Arctic, and he said, “Yes, Merven, we should be doing something. We should be helping you guys.”

I agree the Liberals should be helping us. They shut down our offshore gasification and put a moratorium right across the whole freaking Arctic without even consulting us. They never said a word to us.

We're proud people who like to work for a living. We're not used to getting social assistance and that kind of stuff. Now we're getting tourists coming up, but that's small change compared to when you work in oil and gas and you're used to that kind of living. Our people are used to that. We're not used to selling trinkets and T-shirts and that kind of stuff. But oil and gas is going to come back, I think, if you guys help us build this port and make it more attractive and help us build it up a little better and safer.

Years ago, there were very good ports from old Dome and Canmar, Gulf and Imperial. They were good and they were very usable, but they've been slowly deteriorating over the years. There are three ports in Tuk, one of them owned by MTS, which is the Government of NWT. It's part of Bob's navy.

We need some help with that infrastructure.

The second part is about our natural gas. We're sitting on trillions of cubic feet of natural gas. It's right under our feet, yet we're shipping diesel and gasoline from far away. And in Inuvik they're getting their natural gas from Delta, B.C. They're paying $35 a gigajoule, and it's totally nuts.

Up in Tuk, we're still burning diesel, and yet 13 kilometres out of town we have trillions of cubic feet of natural gas sitting there. We just need a production well, and then we turn on the valve into the LNG plant and away we go.

Some of the stuff is simple for us, but again, it's so hard for the government to fathom and get around. It's so much easier for them to keep on doing what they're doing and shipping their dirty fuel up north. Everybody wants to go with the freaking fans or the wind turbines and pipe stuff, but that stuff never works up there. They've tried it in different areas and it just doesn't work.

I'm speaking too much. I have to let Jackie say a few words here, if I may.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Mr. Jacobson, you have two and a half minutes.

[Jackie Jacobson, Councillor, Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk]

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you, Madam Chair.

Just in regard to what my mayor brings forward, we're resource-rich and cash-poor. That's where we are now in my home community of Tuktoyaktuk.

I'm a former Speaker of the Northwest Territories and a former MLA. For the last three years, I've seen it getting worse and worse in regard to our relying too much on government handouts. The stuff that we are getting is not enough to do anything with.

The biggest thing we have to do is try to work together to make Tuk a deep-sea port, doing it privately with another country, and that's the way it's looking right now. We've had the Chinese—the CCCC, the harbour company out of China—come in to look at Tuk harbour, looking at a deep-sea port.

As my mayor said, we have 33 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and yet we bring it from Delta, B.C., which is clogging up our highways right through the Yukon, coming all the way up through the Yukon and doing a 48-hour shot from Delta to bring it up. How dangerous is that?

It's not only safety. As my mayor said, we're a proud people. We want to do it ourselves and we are going to get it done, with or without any assistance. We're working toward that. We want to make sure that my Inuvialuit people, my people of Tuk and all my youth, are taken care of because they are the lost ones.

Everyone has to graduate and leave town. Two of my kids are living in the Yukon. No jobs.... That's one thing you guys have to think about.

It's so easy to sit down here and make judgments on people and lives that are 3,500 clicks away, and make decisions on our behalf, especially with that moratorium on the Beaufort. That should be taken away, lifted, please and thank you. That is going to open up and give jobs to our people—training and all the stuff we're wishing for.

Our territorial government is not coming up to the plate right now.

Thank you for listening, and I look forward to any questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Thank you very much.

We can all hear the passion in your voices and the opportunities that are there waiting for you, and for all of us. Thank you for your presentation.

We'll go to the rounds of questions from the members.

We're going to start with MP Larry Bagnell.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for your passionate and great...letting us know what's really happening on the ground.

As you know, I'm the closest MP to you in Tuk, other than yours. I can drive there now, which is very exciting. I haven't been there yet, but I'd love to get up that road.

[Merven Gruben]

Just fix the road first.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Fix the road first....

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

That's what I wanted to ask about.

Climate change is playing havoc with our roads in the Yukon. Just a couple of weeks ago, I announced $2 million for science and equipment to try to mitigate the effect on the permafrost, the heaves that we have in our roads, and the safety issues that's causing. With your experience on the ground, having lived there for a long time, I was just wondering how you see any changes related to climate change, particularly how it's affecting infrastructure.

[Merven Gruben]

It is melting. It is melting big time.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Is that even in the communities?

[Merven Gruben]

As you probably know, the whole circumpolar world is melting, and there's really nothing they can do. We're having problems with erosion along the communities and all the beaches across the Arctic.

With infrastructure, yes, of course, even in our communities the roads are melting. Every year they're getting lower and lower. We have to keep putting in more gravel, and it's the same with the highway. Even in the wintertime it's still sinking. It's happening year-round. You know as well as I do that we don't get 40-below weather anymore. Traditionally, in January, February and March we had a solid 40 below, but we're lucky if we get any 40 below weather at any time now.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

On the foundations of buildings, does that affect you?

[Merven Gruben]

Yes, but everybody is on pilings.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Right.

Your suggestion related to the Coast Guard is interesting. Where is the closest place to Tuktoyaktuk where the Coast Guard or the navy actually docks a ship?

[Merven Gruben]

There's a small sub-base in Tuk. There are bigger bases in Hay River, but there is really no base at Tuk. There is an unmanned station, but basically they just store buoys and stuff.

[Jackie Jacobson]

Also.... Sorry, Mr. Mayor.

Larry, their office is in Inuvik, which as you know is 148 kilometres upriver. It's no closer to the ocean. When they come into Tuk, they tow their boat from Inuvik to do some of their exercises. They can't even come down the river to navigate the mouth of the river. The mouth of the river is really bad, too, with the siltation. The silt has to be dredged within the next few years; otherwise it's going to be impassable. In some areas you're drawing five feet of water.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

So they dock at Inuvik instead of at Tuk?

[Jackie Jacobson]

Yes. But when they drive, they have to drive their boat from Inuvik to Tuk on a trailer—offload in Tuk and go out of Tuk.

[Merven Gruben]

They're search and rescue boats, by the way