OneNorth creates business opportunities for the future

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/02/2020 (2035 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

IT’S commonplace to see international tourists getting off flights in Churchill — there to see polar bears, northern lights and beluga whales. For most, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience in a remarkable part of our country.

But tourists are quickly being joined by international investors looking for business opportunities, a situation they’re taking seriously because climate change will soon open northern shipping routes, year-round, to the world.

While climate change brings serious risks that need to be addressed, it also offers an opportunity to reduce carbon emissions. Using northern shipping routes and Arctic gateways is one example.

Development of Indigenous and northern partnerships can bring about new business opportunities. OneNorth is such a partnership. Its role in the development of the trade corridor exiting western Canada at the port of Churchill will help give Canada new access to global markets and get global commodities to our central and western provinces.

The international community is looking north because change is happening in the Arctic at an amazing pace. Research coming out of the Centre for Earth Observation Sciences at the University of Manitoba is predicting Hudson Bay will be ice-free year-round by the early 2040s. The “Northern Passage,” which runs right over the North Pole and is one of the three major trans-Arctic shipping lanes, is anticipated to have single-season ice only in the summer of 2040.

By way of comparison, the “Eastern Passage,” running along the northern Russian coast east of Murmansk, is currently being kept open year-round by Russian ice breakers.

Russia and China are ahead of the pack when it comes to Arctic investment. Russia plans to spend close to $170 billion in Arctic infrastructure over the next few decades, while China, asserting itself as a country with “Arctic interests,” plans to invest close to $1 trillion on Arctic research and development.

This influx of international interest in the North will be transformative to our communities; the question remains whether this transformation will be positive or negative.

We will never subscribe to a development-at-any-cost attitude. This is our homeland. We must preserve it. Therefore, as we move forward, we will balance economic growth with social and environmental responsibility. We know that we are in the best position to find that balance.

In the North, we are changing how we do business. Northern communities do not wish to sit by and watch as others control development in our territories. If we choose development, we will be partners. Without sharing in development decisions, northern and Indigenous communities run the risk of losing control of what happens in our backyards.

Starting now, northern and Indigenous communities need to be partners in all northern and Arctic development projects. We can’t be left on the sidelines to watch as foreign or southern interests embark on projects that extract tremendous wealth from our traditional communities without our control, consent and participation.

Arctic Gateway Group has created a model for what Canada needs. It is an equal partnership, with OneNorth holding 50 per cent ownership, and Fairfax Financial Holdings and AGT of Saskatchewan holding the other 50 per cent. OneNorth is owned by northern Manitoba First Nations and municipalities, large and small, along the Hudson Bay Railway.

Its partnership with Fairfax/AGT provides a meaningful opportunity to participate in the development of the Hudson Bay Railway, the Port of Churchill and Churchill’s Marine Tank Farm and, on the broader scale, the Northern Passages.

This is a national project. The government has given it a critical push start that made this partnership possible, but we need to continue to move forward. While AGG has made striking improvements in just a year, more needs to be done to gain credibility and attract global customers and investment.

For the first time in Canadian history, all the First Nations in a region are owners of a strategic national asset. But OneNorth goes far beyond that; it is a partnership of all Canadians in the region, with municipal and unincorporated communities sitting side by side with their First Nations neighbours — a social and economic neighborhood defined by the rail line — to create a corridor of prosperity for the region.

Opportunities in northern Canada are opportunities based on relationships. OneNorth is a great model for creating business relationships in the future.

Onekanew (Chief) Christian Sinclair of Opaskwayak Cree Nation and Churchill Mayor Mike Spence are co-chairs of OneNorth, which was formerly known as Missinippi Rail LP. Its new name reflects its culture and focus.