Winter fuel arrives in Churchill

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This article was published 15/10/2017 (2911 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Churchill received its emergency fuel supply by ship Sunday, and the mayor reluctantly admitted the northern town will likely spend the winter as fly-in community.

The MV Nunalik arrived with a shipment of 2.2 million litres of propane and equipment, sent by the provincial government at a cost of $6 million.

Churchill Mayor Mike Spence said the ship arrived at the Hudson Bay port around 4:30 a.m. Sunday. It was late by a few days because of storms.

Spence said he doesn’t expect the rail line to the town will be fixed before next month’s freeze-up. That marks the first time an official has admitted that possibility since flooding washed out bridges between Gillam and Churchill on May 23.

“It’s pretty obvious now that we’re running out of time,” Spence said by phone Sunday. “It’s a disappointment; it’s not something that we take well.”

Via Rail confirmed Sunday afternoon its two locomotives and train cars are set to be loaded onto the ship and leave the town Monday, depending on weather and how quickly the ship is offloaded with the propane and supplies. Some of the rail cars were moved Friday afternoon during violent wind gusts, in order to prepare them to be shipped south.

The two locomotives and five rail cars have been rusting in recent days, and the company expressed doubts the train could even be sent south by rail in its current condition had the rail line been operating.

Security has been ramped up around the port, according to locals. The RCMP recently held a meeting with Via Rail, town officials and activists who had publicly discussed demonstrating, delaying or even blocking the train from leaving the town on the ship.

Almost a dozen residents have said while they aren’t angry with Via, a Crown corporation, which has brought thousands of tourists to the town, they see the train as a symbolic asset. They believed refusing to allow it to leave would give them leverage with the federal government.

Federal Energy Minister Jim Carr, Manitoba’s only cabinet minister, said he plans to visit the town shortly. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had promised Spence in late July that there would be a solution to the town’s loss of a rail link to the south. But Spence said Sunday he’s encouraged that Carr has taken an active role on the file.

He also said he’ll look at whether the town’s Nutrition North food subsidy is adequate heading into winter, by comparing costs with Nunavut communities and speaking with officials. Food costs have jumped despite federal and provincial subsidies on food that has be be flown in to the town.

On Friday, Carr announced his government had given rail owner Omnitrax 30 days to fix the rail line and then launch legal proceedings to get back the $18.8 million Ottawa paid the company in a 2008 funding agreement. That agreement saw the feds, the province and Omnitrax each commit $20 million to improve service along the line.

It’s unknown how much Manitoba contributed, and whether the provincial government would join such a lawsuit.

In response, Omnitrax issued a scathing letter Friday. It claimed that Transport Canada bureaucrats had shunned an invitation to visit damaged sections of the rail line. It joining demands by Churchillians to return the port to the public sector.

Spence said Omnitrax had thwarted a move by Keewatin Railway Company to fix the line. On June 23, the First Nations-owned company, which runs an offshoot of the line near Flin Flon, said it could fix the line sooner than Omnitrax had said it could.

Spence said Sunday Omnitrax had denied KRC access to the line to inspect and possibly repair it.

Ottawa transferred the rail line to Denver-based Omnitrax in 1997, and since then the company argues federal and provincial governments have ruined its profitability by axing the former Canadian Wheat Board’s monopoly that almost guaranteed shipments to Churchill, and closing an organization that marketed the port.

Spence said the people of Manitoba’s north are known for their resilience. He continues to see a strong role for Churchill in climate change research and shipping.

“At the end of the day, you never give up.”

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca