Manitoba is Answering the Call: Let’s Get Behind Them

An All-Canada Industrial Strategy is More Critical Than Ever Before. April 30, 2025

In part as an answer to the existential threat posed by the present administration governing in the U.S.A. and in part as the beginning of an effort to work with other provinces and territories across Canada to create a national energy corridor, in early April 2025 the Manitoba government, under the aegis of Premier Wab Kinew, announced it would not be renewing two contracts with Northern States Power. These contracts were slated to end at the end of the April 2025. Northern States Power is part of Xcel Energy, a NASDAQ-traded private utility based in Minneapolis.

The directive to discontinue the contracts includes setting aside 50 MW towards the development of the Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre Link to deliver renewable power to communities in Nunavut. The Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre Link is an infrastructure project that has the potential to bring power and telecommunications infrastructure to northern communities, reducing their dependence on diesel fuel and creating economic opportunity by powering mines in these areas. It is an essential element in the future economic security of Canada’s north and represents a decisive effort in the overall efforts needed to ensure Canada’s sovereignty. The balance of capacity from the discontinued contracts (450 MW) will be redirected to help infrastructure projects in Manitoba and other areas of Canada.

Manitoba Hydro also needs to develop plans to invest $31-billion worth of capital improvements to increase its generating capacity and repair aging infrastructure. For example, two out of its three main transmission lines have lost 20 per cent of their capacity to carry electricity. These plans include spending $1.4 billion to build a new 500-megawatt fuel-burning energy plant by 2030 to stave off winter power shortages. Manitoba Hydro also plans to partner up with Indigenous-owned businesses to develop 600 megawatts of wind farms.

This is the kind of initiative needed to help kick-start a national power grid. Its development is consistent with long-term goals of reducing dependency on fossil fuels for power, increasing green energy sources and promoting cooperation between provinces and territories. This is precisely the kind of thinking we need to foster Canadian independence from any reliance on U.S. markets or on U.S. sources of power.

Another important asset that needs to be considered in a coordinated national effort to create an energy corridor is the full development of the Port of Churchill. Too often we think of Canada’s east coast and west coast as the keys to our future trade efforts with Europe and Asia and forget that we have three coastlines.

The Port of Churchill is iced in for part of the year but is accessible between late July and early November. It is a viable point for exports of grain, bulk commodities, and general cargo. It has four deep-sea berths capable of handling Panamax-size vessels. The Port and the Hudson Bay Railway, both previously owned by an American-based company (OmniTRAX) were sold to Arctic Gateway Group — a consortium of First Nations, local governments, and corporate investors — in 2018. The Port and railway came under complete community and Indigenous ownership in 2021, after AGT Food and Ingredients and Fairfax Financial transferred their shares in Arctic Gateway to OneNorth – the consortium of community and Indigenous partners which already owned the other fifty-percent of Arctic Gateway's shares.

Canada is currently the world's fourth largest oil exporter, and the Port of Churchill has an oil-handling system. In 2013, the Port's previous owner had proposed a $2 million upgrade to this system, which would have given additional competitive advantage to Canada's oil export industry. A trial-run to export of 330,000 barrels of light-sweet crude was proposed at that time. However, by 2014 the plan had been scrapped.

While the future of oil and gas is finite it remains that the resource has many decades left as a key commodity to power the world. A pipeline from northern Alberta to Churchill to deliver crude for export to Asia and Europe fills a temporary need but would provide a viable foundation to develop the Churchill Port facilities for a long-term future. The interest in investing in an alternative port for oil (and potentially gas) exports would also help to attract the funding necessary for the develop of the infrastructure needed to connect Churchill with the rest of Canada.

We need a dialogue that includes participants from all provinces and includes an agenda to discuss these big ideas. The discussions have to be linked to a comprehensive long-term outlook that sees beyond the simple exploitation of Canada’s abundant resources and considers the development of other sustainable economic activities fuelled by these initial investments in infrastructure and power. The inclusion of Indigenous and community owned business interests is a key feature in these discussions.

Sustainability is not simply about the environment and the promotion of green power sources. Sustainability means our economy is sustainable in light of the need to change. In developing capital projects that secure Canada’s future we need to consider activities that develop economies (local, provincial and Canada wide) that will outlast primary resource extraction and provide for the foundation for secondary and tertiary industries. These in totality are needed to support a free and democratic Canadian confederation of a diverse group of peoples. This involves promoting the interests of provinces needing access to export and import facilities, the territories that need infrastructure to support their development and sovereign indigenous nations that need revenue sources that assist them in achieving self-determination and self-governance.

It is fitting that Manitoba has taken a leadership role in being first out of the gate in these ways in response to the existential threats we collectively are facing. Why? Because, Manitoba has the highest indigenous population as a percentage of the overall provincial population amongst Canada’s provinces. It has immediate needs to address its aging infrastructure and to find renewable sources of power. With greater access to waterways in the near Arctic there is an opportunity to rethink Canada’s orientation which has too long been southward facing and must now turn to the north.

The geographic centre of Canada from east to west, is located near 96°48′35″W in the Rural Municipality of Taché, Manitoba. Specifically, it's east of Winnipeg on the Trans-Canada Highway. Symbolically we suggest this is a natural symbolic pivot point for the launching of a Canadian Industrial Strategy which must focus on linking the provinces and territories in terms of internal trade and cooperation in the development of new export markets. Manitoba’s future depends on cooperation from the other provinces in helping it develop its economy and helping it turn northward as an important link to the territories. This is instrumental in securing Arctic sovereignty and establishing Canadian exceptionalisms which are based on our ability to embrace the wonderful diversity of our land, resources and most importantly all the people who share this land.

BTW - Churchill, MB is not far off the true centre of Canada.

The geographical center of Canada is located at 62°24′N 96°28′W. This North South and East West center point of Canada is located just south of Yathkyed Lake, Kivalliq Region, Nunavut, which is just west of Rankin Inlet on Hudson Bay, and north and west of Churchill, MB (see map pinpoints below), of course directly north of Tache, MB.

Source: Google.