Carr to visit Churchill, announce new funding

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This article was published 30/11/2017 (2879 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Energy Minister Jim Carr will visit Churchill Friday, the first federal cabinet minister to do so since the northern Manitoba town lost its rail lifeline May 23.

Carr first pledged to visit the town of 900 on the shore of Hudson Bay during an Oct. 13 visit to the Free Press editorial board, saying he’d be going the following week.

In a release Thursday morning, the federal granting agency Western Economic Diversification revealed Carr will announce new funding aiming to “benefit food security, scientific research and education, as well as economic development in northern Manitoba.”

The government would not provide any more detail Thursday. The announcement was initially planned for the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, which sits outside the town, but was moved to the main complex that houses almost all municipal services in Churchill.

Carr, a Winnipeg MP who is the sole Manitoban in the federal cabinet, will visit the town for roughly 10 hours, according to sources familiar with the trip.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declined an invitation from Churchill Mayor Mike Spence this summer, but instead promised in late July a solution to the railway crisis. Industry Minister Navdeep Bains visited the town in September 2016 to announce a fund to alleviate the effect of layoffs at the Port of Churchill.

Former prime minister Stephen Harper visited Churchill in August 2010.

Spence said Carr will meet with the town’s council, locals and businesses.

“We have had a strong and important relationship with the federal government during this period of instability,” Spence wrote in an email, adding Ottawa “has made important commitments to our region.”

He said the feds are of the same mind as locals, in seeing business opportunities as a result of changing climate patterns.

It is unknown whether Carr will announce a major announcement relating to Ottawa’s bid to get the Hudson Bay Railway and Port of Churchill into local hands.

On Nov. 16, Carr announced Toronto-based Fairfax Financial Holdings Inc. “has expressed interest in partnering with” a consortium of two northern Manitoba groups.

It was the first public sign of progress since the Liberals started a process two months earlier to negotiate the transfer of both assets into local hands. But just days earlier, both Ottawa and Denver-based rail-line owner Omnitrax filed multimillion-dollar legal claims alleging the other had sabotaged the railway.

Carr’s visit comes amid what Manitoba Sen. Patricia Bovey has called “an emergency humanitarian situation,” after observing rising costs and limited employment options that have sent families south.

Starting this month, a litre of gas costs more than $2, and grocery costs remain much higher than before the spring washout, despite a federal fresh-food subsidy. The local school lost 10 per cent of its pupils this year.

Ottawa has dispatched a civil servant to indefinitely help business find economic opportunities, and connect residents with federal services. Winnipeg shipping industries are also fretting the loss of their Nunavut customer base, with almost all goods going through Montreal-area ports.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca