Northern Manitoba groups pledge co-operation to fix Hudson Bay Railway

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This article was published 06/09/2017 (2951 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — After months of sparring over ownership of Churchill’s troubled rail line and port, two northern Manitoba groups have joined forces in a last-ditch effort to get the line fixed before winter.

The move comes as Omnitrax publicly released a 60-day plan Wednesday to restore service along the line, with a repair-cost estimate of $43.5 million.

Missinippi Rail and One North are two separate corporate groups that include First Nations chiefs. In an Aug. 28 letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, obtained by the Free Press, the two pledge “to find a strong, inclusive and lasting solution” for Churchill and communities along the line.

It’s been 15 weeks since historic flooding ended service along the Hudson Bay Railway, whose owner Omnitrax, a private company, has refused to pay to repair, despite pressure from Ottawa.

An independent engineering assessment said repairs to the line would have to start in the first week of September in order to be finished before the winter freeze. 

“Time is not on our side; this needs to be expedited,” Churchill Mayor Mike Spence said in an interview Wednesday.

The letter was signed by Spence, along with his One North co-chairman, Opaskwayak Cree Nation Chief Christian Sinclair. Their group is as a coalition of municipalities along the rail line and the Nunavut hamlets that rely on its shipments.

“We have been saying for more than a year we are willing to work with them,” Sinclair said. “We can take part of our model and part of theirs and combine it to make it the best-case scenario.”

The letter was also signed by Grand Chief Arlen Dumas on behalf of Missinippi Rail, which is made up of a group of northern Manitoba First Nations. Dumas, who was elected head of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs in July, was chief of the Mathias Colomb Cree Nation until last week.

In June, Missinippi Rail had signed an agreement with Omnitrax to buy Churchill’s port, rail and petroleum tank farm for $20 million — on the condition Ottawa pony up some of the funding.

Dumas described the recent letter as a concession, saying Missinippi had angled to get possession since 2015. He claims when other First Nations groups mulled their own takeover, it gave officials “a stall tactic” to delay transferring the line.

“I found it very bizarre because we had already secured a contractual position, we had an exclusivity agreement,” he said in an interview.

Yet Sinclair pointed out despite Omnitrax talking with the Dumas-led group exclusively for more than a year, the discussions have not progressed past a memorandum of understanding. He claimed One North has more public support because it represents communities connected by the rail line, which doesn’t include Dumas’s home community.

“We are all geographically located on the Bay Line,” Sinclair said. 

Regardless of their precise location, there now seems to be a general consensus the enterprise makes most sense to be run by operators with a vested interest in the region.

In the statement released late Friday afternoon from the office of Jim Carr, the minister of natural resources, it was made clear Ottawa was “exploring the possibility of working with a new owner towards the repair of the rail line.”

In various ways, the government of Canada has signalled it believes Indigenous ownership of the railroad makes sense. 

“Ultimately, the best people to put in there are from northern Canada,” Sinclair said. “They can make it work with the right people and the right business model.”

Dumas said the Prime Minister’s Office pushed the two northern Manitoba groups to collaborate, saying it would make it easier for Ottawa.

“It’s about wanting to find ways to move ahead,” he said, adding the feds otherwise envisioned a drawn-out, litigious process to get the rail line from the Denver-based company which has owned the railway since 1997. 

The PMO wouldn’t confirm that Wednesday. “Our government committed to helping the people of Churchill, and to finding a resolution to this situation,” spokesman Cameron Ahmad said.

Meanwhile, a government source familiar with the issue said departments are focused on finding a solution for Churchill that doesn’t involve a large taxpayer expense.

On Wednesday evening, Omnitrax quietly published the AECOM engineering report it had held for a month.

“Repairs must commence in early September if the line is to be reopened this year,” reads the report, which includes a plan that involves dropping material by air, “an automated conveyor train” and a work camp on rail cars.

It says the rail line could be made operable for lightweight cargo in 60 days, in time for the early November freeze-up. That would be followed by more permanent repairs in spring 2018 for 90 days, which would cost more money.

The report said AECOM is already preparing contract documents that could be used to commission contractors to start work “by early September 2017.”

Dumas and Spence said they’ve discussed having Keewatin Railway Company fix the line. The group, which maintains its own rail line in northern Manitoba, offered June 23 to do so, after Omnitrax said it would take months. 

If Ottawa transferred the rail line to both groups, it would likely save the federal obligation to have a months-long tendering process to chose which company would fix the line.

Dumas and Spence hope the move means they can get working as soon as this week, to make the line operable at a lower speed this winter, and then do more permanent repairs in the spring when the thawing ground is harder. 

“We gotta get shovels in the ground,” said Spence. “The bigger fixes can happen next year.”

“I’m very optimistic,” said Dumas. “Once we’re able to get rid of Omnitrax, we’re going to be able to salvage all of the progress.”

Omnitrax’s report describes its two-month plan as “ambitious given the remote locations requiring repair and the shortness of remaining construction season.”

It says the repairs could be hindered if contractors or equipment isn’t available, or if the temperature drops earlier than normal. It also says ongoing “geotechnical and underwater bridge scour investigations” could find more faults.

The report is dated Aug. 18, though Omnitrax told the Free Press last month it had received the assessment Aug. 4.

Omnitrax has already presented the report to federal and provincial officials, as well as Missinippi Rail. The company says it will also present the report to One North on Friday.

In a Wednesday statement, Omnitrax Canada president Merv Tweed said he was “very pleased” Dumas has reached out to One North “to own and operate the HBR and the port assets.

— with files from Martin Cash 

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca

Omnitrax full engineering report

wfppdf:https://media.winnipegfreepress.com/documents/omnitrax280817.pdf|August 28 letter to the Prime Minister's Office