Ottawa funds Manitoba road study

The prospect of a road connection to Manitoba got a boost last week when DIAND Minister Bob Nault announced that Ottawa will spend $500,000 on a long-awaited pre-feasibility study aimed at picking two possible routes.

It’s estimated that a full-blown Kivalliq-Manitoba all-weather road would run for about 1,200 km and cost a whopping $2 billion.
A winter ice road would cost much less, so the study will look at ways of moving gradually from that to an all-weather road.

This new study will look at six proposed road corridors and try to narrow them down to two choices.

Nunavut and Manitoba officials have been trying to get this study going for years, after an earlier one that was completed in 2000, and after a variety of intergovernmental talks that have taken place since the late 1990s on hydro-electric power lines and roads between the two jurisdictions.

A pre-feasibility study on hydro-electric power lines between Manitoba and Nunavut was completed more than four years ago, but little has happened since. Such a power line could run from Gillam, Manitoba, to as far north as Baker Lake.

DIAND’s contribution to the latest $1.1-million study accounts for about 45.5 per cent of its cost.

Transport Canada will kick in another $125,000, the Government of Manitoba $250,000, and the Government of Nunavut $125,000.

The Kivalliq Inuit Association, which proposed the study, will contribute $100,000.

The study will include public consultations, and some research into economic benefits and environmental impacts.