Evidence of meeting #126 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.
Executive Director, Northwest Territories and Nunavut Construction Association
—create a huge deficit, but it needs to be done.
Liberal
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
Thank you. I'm very grateful to have you both here today.
Matt, I'll start off with you. Thank you so much for your presentation. I really appreciated it and I heard clearly that the projects largely wrap up in two years and apprenticeship becomes a significant challenge. In terms of attracting and retaining people, this would be a huge hardship.
I would like you to talk about whether you've heard anything about being a little more strategic on some of these projects so that we can see some of them overlapping, and there will be those four years that people need in order to do their apprenticeships.
Also, could you talk about what that would really mean for the communities? I know that when it comes to building these projects, the people who work on them tend to be transient and move with projects anyway. How would this really help keep people in those communities so that we could see long-term sustainability?
Executive Director, Northwest Territories and Nunavut Construction Association
There are housing maintenance trades here. If you went in and built what you needed to build in these communities, you don't need to figure this out for yourself. The GNWT has already. It has a long list of projects. It's not a matter of what to do, but what to do first. Work with the local governments here, or just fund them directly, so they can pursue these capital projects.
I know lots of people move to work in the mines, but there is work in the communities, basic core work in water, sewer and housing. People need to be there to maintain it. Just build what you need, and things will work out as best they can.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
I've also read a few different articles that talk about how hard it is, in some of these regions, to get those skilled workers into the community. Training them seems to make a lot of sense, because of the expense of bringing those skilled workers.
Do you have any data that would tell us a little bit about the added expense of bringing in skilled workers when you can't have investments that last long enough to train the people within your own communities, and to do that not only in the community, but in that region?
Executive Director, Northwest Territories and Nunavut Construction Association
I don't have exact numbers for that, but if they're not local, then you're flying people in and finding a place for them to stay. That is going to cost money for a project if you have to keep them for years while the project happens. It would be a lot cheaper if the person already lived there. It's just common sense, I guess.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
I'll move on and talk about the Arctic Gateway with you, Murad, if you don't mind. I really appreciated your presentation. It sounds like there's been a lot of collaboration and work done within indigenous communities to have that collaborative framework, which is a good step forward.
I'd like you to talk a little bit more about what this project looks like. What types of infrastructure investment would be required to develop it and maintain it for the long term?
President and Chief Executive Officer, AGT Food and Ingredients Inc.
We are now doing an infrastructure gap assessment. One of the things we did initially was that emergency repair between Gillam and Churchill to get those communities reconnected to the rail infrastructure. The very first thing to do is to assess the permafrost and the track bed stability. If we want safety and the ability to move commodities in a cost-effective manner, we need stable, safe infrastructure. The rail infrastructure is the first priority.
We're lacking basic things for safety and efficiency. Telecommunications and the wireless infrastructure are absolutely lacking. I chaired the national strategy table for agriculture and food for the Government of Canada. One of our core recommendations from the strategy table was a rolling 50-year infrastructure plan for the Government of Canada, including gateways and corridors, including infrastructure investment priorities.
That was the physical infrastructure. In addition to that, there was the question of wireless broadband infrastructure across the country. On that northern route from The Pas, Manitoba, to Churchill, we have spotty cellphone, at best, and data is not available. From that perspective, we're looking at wireless data communication options. We're looking at employing technology to ensure we can bring those types of technological solutions.
The port itself needs a lot of work. We're going to be looking at fixing the berths. We have wharf areas that need to be repaired. The grain terminal itself will have to be refurbished. We're going to do phase one of that with around $10 million of emergency safety repairs.
Then we have to build a business case. We have to attract private investment to be in partnership with government. We want to be getting that business case built and attracting—through the infrastructure bank and through others—pension funds and private sector money, in partnership with the communities. That model is going to very successful here, because we have the communities as equity owners, not just as collaborative partners. They actually own 50% of the Arctic Gateway. That's what's historical about our project.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
One of the things I'm hearing clearly is that there's a lot of work to be done. The results of what's happening with permafrost and all the washouts you were talking about earlier are all huge issues. In terms of the skilled labour to get this work done, how are you guys doing? It sounds like a bit of an overlap in some ways between you and Matt.
President and Chief Executive Officer, AGT Food and Ingredients Inc.
For sure.
As you were talking to Matt, I was thinking about we currently have to employ some contractors to come in and do the emergency work, but we really need to partner with our first nations communities and our communities as a whole.
University College of the North is a very critical institution for us. We're going to be starting apprenticeship training programs for engineers, conductors, and track maintenance workers.
As Matt said, it does not make sense to relocate people. We have a skilled young workforce that wants to be employed. They want long-term, year-round employment. We need to create diversified business flows that are not just counting on one commodity, the mining sector, which is what has driven a lot of the northern activities. We want all the commodities so we have a bit more seasonal balance.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal MaryAnn Mihychuk
Thank you.
We'll move on in questioning and welcome MP James Maloney to our committee. I understand he's going to start off questioning and then share his time with MP Yvonne Jones.
Liberal
James Maloney Liberal Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON
Thank you, Chair.
My question is for Murad and this business case you're talking about with Churchill.
The Hudson Bay Railway serves two purposes. It services those communities, but it also presents the opportunity for Churchill to become a commercial port. If it is successful, it will be to some extent at the expense of other ports.
You touched on the example earlier when you mentioned the grain elevators in Thunder Bay. I know a little about that because I paid my way through university about 30 years ago by working in those grain elevators at Thunder Bay. At that time, it was the largest grain port in the world. It isn't anymore. During that six-week window in the summer when Churchill was running, there were a lot of people in Thunder Bay who got laid off and lost their overtime and didn't like Churchill. It hurt the economy in Thunder Bay.
If you're expanding the economic viability of the Churchill port beyond grain, who are the losers in that scenario?
President and Chief Executive Officer, AGT Food and Ingredients Inc.
In terms of having enough capacity to get our products to market, in the grain scenario today as an example, we're growing in yield and in crop size. Back in the days when you were working, the grain crop size was 28 million to 38 million tonnes. Our last harvest was 56 million tonnes.
When we look at that seasonal shipping window, Thunder Bay is going to continue to be absolutely jammed busy during the same period that Churchill is shipping. I don't think it's a sacrifice. We're seeing the productive capacity growing, and we need to utilize all those port infrastructures in order to get our products to market.
I'm looking out 10 and 20 years, too, not just at what's going to happen in two or three years.
Liberal
James Maloney Liberal Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON
I can tell you that it was a sacrifice then. I don't know what's different now, if the capacity is greater. Thunder Bay is a shadow of what it used to be in terms of grain export capacity.
President and Chief Executive Officer, AGT Food and Ingredients Inc.
The grain crop is larger. Vancouver is bigger. Part of what we have in Thunder Bay is a different dynamic.
You have the Great Lakes freight, but it's Panamax vessel freight in the world today. The vessel size is limited in Thunder Bay. It's actually a draft issue. It's a vessel size issue. The cost of shipping out of Thunder Bay is materially higher because you can't have the vessel size come in.
Liberal
James Maloney Liberal Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON
Okay.
My point simply is that you are competing with other Canadian ports.
President and Chief Executive Officer, AGT Food and Ingredients Inc.
I'm competing with other world ports, because if we rely on the Canadian ports that can't compete, we won't be in the game, actually.
Liberal
James Maloney Liberal Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON
Then are Canadian products going to be shipped from ports outside of Canada instead of Churchill?
President and Chief Executive Officer, AGT Food and Ingredients Inc.
No, Canadian products won't be shipped. They won't be shipped because we won't compete.
Yvonne Jones Labrador, Lib.
Hello, my name is Yvonne Jones, a member of Parliament. I'm from Labrador. I'm a very proud northerner.
Murad, when I listen to both you and Matt, I'm very inspired by your ideas and by your suggestions for northern communities. I'm going to start with you, because I really believe we have tremendous potential for more Arctic ports in Canada. I also know that as we continue to negotiate good trade deals abroad, the demand for Canadian products and the opportunity for Canadians to export is growing as well.
You were talking about grain. We're already realizing that some of the largest producers of pasta, companies in Italy, are now using Canadian grains and Canadian water to do their manufacturing and put their product out to the world market.
My question to you is around the infrastructure assessment you're doing. When do you think you'll have that completed? What time frames would you be looking at to roll some of that out?
Also, what kind of capacity are you looking to build at the port that is going to be fundamentally as efficient to do the type of visionary work that you're talking about right now?
President and Chief Executive Officer, AGT Food and Ingredients Inc.
You've properly captured the visionary element of it. I tried to lay out a broad vision to you about the truly generational opportunity of building a cohesive Arctic strategy and infrastructure. When I look at Russia, I see 12 Arctic ports, six of which are rail-served, and 20% of the GDP of the country is going through those Arctic ports, many of them operating year round. Icebreaker vessel technology has changed dramatically, and the cost of that has changed.
We as a Canadian nation have a decision to make on whether we are going to control that northern passage or whether we're going to allow China and Russia to control it. I think that is the big opportunity, and with that will come massive developments at port locations within Arctic communities, which will then drive the need for infrastructure for power, water, wastewater, sewage, as well as all kinds of infrastructure to build and maintain the roads, and that will create lasting opportunities. We can't continue to pour the money in with no economic activity to sustain it. That's the vision.
Labrador, Lib.
I'm sorry I only have a minute, but Matt, I want to say thank you for raising the issue around skilled employment and apprenticeship programs. It's a serious issue across all northern communities.
I want to speak to you about the procurement piece for construction companies in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. What's your opinion of how the procurement is working on federal government contracts? Going back a few years, I know there was a tremendous deficiency in that area. I'm not entirely convinced there's been much change, but I'd like to get your opinion.
Executive Director, Northwest Territories and Nunavut Construction Association
I don't know a lot about how it might have changed recently, but we did just have someone with the federal government doing a presentation on procurement here during Small Business Week, and we're going to work with them any way we can to make sure their opportunities are getting in front of the estimators and the people who are putting in bids. A huge service we provide is collecting all the different tenders from probably 30 or 40 different websites.
It's a lot of work for one business to log into all these accounts and review them all; it's time they could be spending on something else. Working with the local companies to make sure they know the opportunities is definitely key.