Report Calls for Road to Canada's Arctic Coast
Date: 01-Dec-05
Country: CANADA
Author: Allan Dowd
The building the Mackenzie Valley Highway would cost about C$700 million ($600 million), but could be partly paid for with tolls or fees on oil and natural gas development, according to a report released this week by the Northwest Territories government.
The report said the time was right for Canada to revive a long-stalled plan for the all-weather road that would eventually link the Arctic port of Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., with the territory's existing road system more than 800 km (500 miles) to the south.
"The political and economic difficulties that impeded the completion of the Mackenzie Valley Highway over three decades ago have improved," Premier Joseph Handley and Transportation Minister Michael McLeod said in the proposal's introduction.
It would replace the existing "winter roads" that have trucks drive on ice-covered rivers and frozen ground during that season to deliver freight -- a system the report's authors warned was threatened by global warming.
"The existing limited transportation window makes development and exploration activities expensive and inefficient," the report said.
The plan links the road's construction to the proposed development of natural gas in the Mackenzie Valley on the Beaufort Sea and a C$7 billion, 1,350 km (850 mile) pipeline that would move the gas south to markets in Canada and the United States.
The territory is asking the federal government to issue loan guarantees, and proposes the C$700 million debt be paid off over 35 years. Ottawa would be responsible for 75 percent of the debt, with the territorial government paying 25 percent.
Ottawa proposed a road to the Arctic coast in the late 1950s. Some construction began in 1972 but was stopped in 1977 when a 10 year moratorium was imposed on oil and gas development in the far north.
Territorial officials said the road would also strengthen Canada's claim of control over the Northwest Passage across the top of North America, through Canada's Arctic archipelago.
"A highway to the Arctic would help assert Canadian sovereignty over Canadian Arctic waterways as shipping routes become increasingly accessible," the report said.
