Kivalliq residents frustrated by the road not taken

The day Arviat MLA Kevin O’Brien drives from Arviat to Churchill, Manitoba, will be a happy one.

Like many people in Arviat, O’Brien dreams of a road that will someday link the Kivalliq region with the rest of Canada — but he’s losing patience with the exceedingly slow process of getting the project out of the mouths of politicians and on to the ground.

The governments of Nunavut and Manitoba have already committed themselves to the project — in principle.

“We’ve have made six agreements,” O’Brien said. “I think it’s time to make some hard decisions.”

But decisions are tough given the uncertainties about the cost of the road and who will pick up the tab.

Last December, the GN and the Manitoba government both agreed to spend $250,000 each to study the possibility of a road.

“I think we’re finally seeing some light,” O’Brien said.

But the two governments will need federal money to move the project ahead.

That’s why Tongola Sandy, president of the Kivalliq Inuit Association, is writing a letter this week, asking Manitoba, the GN, the federal government and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. to form a planning committee.

“These are the key people,” Sandy said.

To the frustration of many in the Kivalliq, there’s been more discussion recently about hydroelectric development in the region than a road.

And the construction of a hydroelectric line to or from the region wouldn’t even require the additional cost of building a road because a power line would be able to run over the most direct route, across rivers and lakes.

Unlike the power line, a road would most likely have to follow flatter land near the coastline — from Churchill to Arviat and up as far as Rankin Inlet.

“They really are two different projects,” O’Brien said.

A road to the Kivalliq would lower the cost of living and possibly encourage mining companies to develop promising mineral deposits.

It could also bring some of the 15,000 or so tourists who visit Churchill into the Kivalliq.

But the chief attraction would be the general improvement in transportation for everyone living in Nunavut.

“Nowhere else are you going to get a road from Nunavut to the rest of Canada,” O’Brien said.