New $22M cargo facility to service Canadian North in Ottawa

Canadian North is getting a new $22-million cargo facility at the Ottawa International Airport.

Canadian North president and CEO and Michael Rodyniuk and federal Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez made the announcement to reporters gathered at the Ottawa International Airport Wednesday.

The airline and federal government will each spend about $11 million on the project.

The federal government’s share will come from the National Trade Corridors Fund, a $4.6-billion, 11-year fund to help infrastructure owners invest in assets that support economic activity, according to a government news release.

The new facility will double the airline’s current capacity by 2026 and expand the truck loading area, reducing delays in cargo-handling, Rodyniuk said.

“The livelihoods of the people in the North is something that sometimes is overlooked and it’s something that we take very seriously,” he said.

Building the cargo facility is “a huge milestone” for the airline, which moves  25 million kilograms of cargo to the North every year, Rodyniuk said.

That includes medications, perishable food and essentials for daily life, he said.

The new facility will also expand energy-efficient refrigeration and freezing areas to reduce waste and preserve essential goods, and it will have a backup power system to ensure service continuity during severe weather events.

“We will have a facility that is state of the art. It will be utilizing renewable technology wherever possible, but it will also have redundancies for things like the storms that we’ve recently seen coming through our home here in Ottawa,” Rodyniuk said.

“This project will concretely help those who live in the north where supply chain access [has] an even more profound effect,” Rodriguez said.