From Charles McNeely,
chair of Sahtu Secretariat Inc.
For a very long time, the North has been viewed as a source of resources — beaver, furs, timber, metals, oil and gas – all to be developed by southern companies, financed by southern banks, for the benefit of distant southern markets. Harold Innes would be proud.
In exchange for this, the North got, well, exactly what did we get?
Dispossessed of our lands and resources, our families torn apart, our culture and language discredited and our children abused.
Not exactly a fair exchange, was it?
How about we try something different for a change?
Let’s begin by dropping the focus on Northern resources for southern markets. That ship has sailed.
Markets no longer need, or want, our oil and gas resources: we are caught between declining world demand and vast quantities of competing, closer to market, cheaper reserves.
Our diamond mines are coming to the end of their life: a combination of declining reserves and competition from lab-generated stones.
What’s the new focus, you might ask.
That’s pretty easy to answer. Let’s change the focus from looking for stuff we can move south to routes that go north, to the benefit of both you and us.
A Mackenzie Valley all-weather road would clearly be good for us. Beyond good, in fact, absolutely necessary if we are to survive up here. It would be good for you, too. I’ll get to that in a minute.
In the Sahtu region, we have no year-round roads. We depend on resupply by barges, on a river that is getting more and more dangerous; on limited ice road seasons, ones that grow shorter every year; and on costly air shipments.
We are already one of the most expensive regions in all of Canada and the impacts, and costs of climate change, for families and businesses are making our situation more and more untenable.
We badly need an all-weather road system, one that runs from Wrigley all the way to Inuvik. One that is focused on helping us to live up here, to raise our families, to see our children prosper, not one that would exist only to move any of our remaining, uneconomic mineral reserves, some likely to be owned by Chinese companies, to the south.
And for you, what benefit?
First, a stronger North, one that can withstand the challenges coming from those who want our land, one that can rapidly move military resources from the south to the Beaufort Sea when needed.
Next, a continental link from the United States all the way to the Arctic coast.
It is said coastal states have a more outward looking, developing economy than those that are landfast. We have three coasts now and a possible link to a continental fourth. How much more could we dream of greater things for our country if that were the case?
Third, a way for the federal government to reduce the costs of reclaiming all the abandoned mines for which it is responsible, as well as its share of the coming Norman Wells oilfield reclamation.
And, last, a legacy for the current prime minister to complete Northern infrastructure. Diefenbaker built the Dempster; Harper the Inuvik to Tuk road; there is an opening for the Trudeau link.
The first two roads were built to take resources out of the North. The last one, the Trudeau one, would bring the world into the North.