Evidence of meeting #123 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was infrastructure.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:05 p.m.
Councillor, Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk
Listen to the shareholders and to the land claim groups, instead of the way things rolled out. It's not right.
4:10 p.m.
Mayor, Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk
The whole region was dumped. Nobody in our whole community.... I'm friends with everybody in all these other communities. Nobody was consulted.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
I'm surprised by that.
You also talked a bit about the use of diesel and how concerning that is for you. I'm also curious about the age of the infrastructure for the diesel. We've definitely heard from other people who have come to the committee and talked about how it's aging out and how much of a concern it is in some situations where the power has been knocked out in the middle of winter and you have to respond to that.
If you could you talk about the actual infrastructure for the diesel, I would appreciate it.
4:10 p.m.
Mayor, Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk
The power station is not that old, maybe 15 or 20 years—
4:10 p.m.
Mayor, Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk
—but you're always getting power outages in the wintertime. That's guaranteed. Storms are always knocking power lines off. The storms never stop. It's a given. I have a backup generator in my house. You know the power is going to go out, but it's the same in any other community.
What we're planning to do with natural gasification for our community is to run the whole community's generators on natural gas and power and heat the whole town on electricity. There are still going to be lines down sometimes and that kind of thing, of course, but you're burning a cleaner fossil fuel. For years and years, we've been burning diesel. I don't know why. We're sitting right on top of trillions of cubic feet of natural gas....
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
I have one quick question. We heard a lot from other folks about the challenges with housing in your community. Is that something you're experiencing as well?
4:10 p.m.
Mayor, Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk
Yes, big time. Everywhere we're short. We have teachers staying in substandard—
4:10 p.m.
Mayor, Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk
Yes, and our place is probably about a hundred short. We have teachers staying in substandard housing already. We're just not building affordable housing fast enough. Jackie and I are lucky enough to own our houses, and they're not cheap to run, let alone build and maintain them yourself.
4:10 p.m.
Don Rusnak Thunder Bay—Rainy River, Lib.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mayor Gruben, you talked a lot about the ban on drilling in the Beaufort Sea. How much work got done between the early 2000s and 2014 in the Beaufort Sea?
I'm reading an article here that says Royal Dutch Shell and a couple of other companies pulled out. They said the line is $150 per barrel to make it economically viable for projects in that region. Were there a lot of projects going on before the ban?
4:10 p.m.
Councillor, Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk
Yes, thank you, Mr. Rusnak.
When Royal Dutch Shell pulled out of the Arctic on our side—on our Beaufort—they pulled out the Kulluk, the drilling platform that was supposed to drill in the Chukchi Sea. That was the only impact we had, from 2007. For four years, from 2004 to 2007, they were there, just trying to fix up the drilling rig itself.
4:10 p.m.
Councillor, Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk
Yes. They moved the asset over to Alaska, and they had to underpower the—
4:10 p.m.
Thunder Bay—Rainy River, Lib.
How much drilling is happening on the Alaskan side?
4:10 p.m.
Councillor, Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk
They are not drilling right now. The Chukchi is supposed to be opening up. They're really making headway, but the thing about Tuk—
4:10 p.m.
Thunder Bay—Rainy River, Lib.
I imagine it's extremely expensive to operate oil and gas wells in the Beaufort or anywhere in the Arctic. I'm from northwestern Ontario. I know that operating mines in northwestern Ontario is much more expensive than operating a mine in, say, northern Minnesota, which isn't that far away but the infrastructure to bring in equipment, people and all the other things you need to operate these very intensive pieces of infrastructure is there. The price point for either minerals or oil has to be at a certain level before it's economically viable.
I'll put it to you that it wasn't economically viable up until 2007, and that's why Shell pulled out.
4:10 p.m.
Councillor, Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk
Shell pulled out because they were going to drill in the Chukchi Sea. They were preparing the rig to go drill in the Chukchi.
4:10 p.m.
Thunder Bay—Rainy River, Lib.
Okay.
Has the region, or the Northwest Territories government or the hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk, prepared any other plans? I've been listening to Mayor Spence from Churchill, and I had a brief conversation. I know the chair represents Manitoba.
It's actually music to my ears to hear that Churchill is going in a different direction. In the past, it competed directly with the port of Thunder Bay for grain. Having a plan that makes Churchill a service centre for the north, with the infrastructure and investing in that infrastructure—seeing a way past the subsidies of the past and going a new way that's economically viable—is something that I think all Canadians can be proud of, and get behind and support.
Even for a member of Parliament from Thunder Bay, who directly competed with your port before, hearing that is music to my ears. Can you talk a little more about the plans Churchill has to become a regional service centre, and the infrastructure Churchill will need to realize that economic opportunity?
4:15 p.m.
Mayor, Town of Churchill
What was really required was.... The infrastructure we had was getting tired. The previous owner didn't reinvest.
We put together a group of Bay Line communities, along with communities north of us in the Kivalliq district, and we were introduced to Fairfax and AGT in terms of coming up with a plan, so that the plan would be long-term, and making sure that regional ownership is key and critical reinvestment continues to happen.
By doing all of that.... It doesn't take long to think big and go big. We have to remember, again, that the assets that were invested into Churchill going back to the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s weren't designed for Churchill alone. They were designed for moving agricultural products from the Prairies out to the world: Mexico, Brazil, Europe, Russia, places like that.
Today, we will look that way again. Our strategic partners have the wherewithal.... They're in the industry and will look north.
What's really critical here is that we have the infrastructure. It just needed some attention, and we're getting it that attention. We have a huge runway. In fact, we have two runways, which were designed by the U.S. military going back to the 1940s and 1950s. Those assets serviced the north. What happens is that at times there are duplications. It's hard with infrastructure; if you don't reinvest, it gets tired. Strategically, we have partners and we're prepared to be partners and reinvest in our infrastructure.
I'll tell you that nutrition north is a challenge, with the high cost....
Let's utilize the regions of Canada and use key regions like ours and Tuk so that we can help the regions that we're responsible for.
