Canada’s ports could play key role as Trump’s tariffs bite: Commentary
There has been a lot of talk about nation-building projects in Canada as a response to Donald Trump’s draconian tariffs. Some of these – like a tunnel that would duplicate a major road north of Toronto – are wild and woolly. Others make sense, provided they can be shown to enhance Canada’s economy and help diversify trade.
The Arctic has its own share of projects, mainly to provide additional outlets for Canadian resources. There are two primary projects: One in the Western Arctic and one to move products through Churchill, Manitoba, or another port on the south shore of Hudson Bay. As a recent article about Churchill demonstrated, there isn’t much hope for an alternative port on Hudson Bay because the southern coastline is shallow and hostile. So what about Churchill?
Port of Churchill
While it is a safe port, Churchill does have its limitations. Currently it has two berths, one 11.5 meters in depth and one at 8.5 meters. However, the basic structure of the wharves is still the timber cribs built almost 100 years ago for ships of about 15,000 deadweight tonnage (DWT), although work has been done over the years to upgrade their capabilities. The entrance is draft limited, and deep draft ships would need to work the tide for entrance or departure. Dredging is feasible, so deeper draft access could be achieved. However, the port is probably limited to Handymax ships (40,000 to 50,000 DWT).
Much has been made of seasonal limitations, but these mainly refer back to Canada’s Arctic Shipping Pollution Prevention Regulations, and the Zone Date System that came into force in the 1970’s. The latter was based on ice conditions of the 1960s.
The Arctic climate has moved considerably over the past 60 years, and it is entirely feasible that moderately ice-strengthened vessels could access the port in an extended season, and ships similar to Fednav’s Umiak 1 could operate all year round without icebreaker assistance.
Oil has been touted as a potential cargo, but this would need a new tank farm and potentially a two-step logistics approach. The latter would use year round ice breaking tankers to a transshipment point, complemented by seasonal direct shipments. Transshipment would, perhaps, involve a joint venture with a company like Polaroil in Greenland to provide tankage accessible to Aframax vessels (about 90,000 DWT) in an area that has year-round ice-free access.
Thus, making more effective use of Churchill is feasible, but it needs imaginative solutions and a considerable investment in the port to move it into a multi-cargo future.
James Bay
The Premier of Ontario has recently mused, to the amazement of the folks who live there, about a deep-water port on James Bay. As the Hudson’s Bay Company found 400 years ago, it was shallow, even for their sailing ships. The Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway built in 1931 was supposed to serve a deep water port on James Bay, but found – as history dictated – that it was too shallow. We can probably discount this project.
The Western Arctic
The current Western Arctic deep-water port project centers on Gray’s Bay, although there was a previous push to create a similar port in Bathurst Inlet. The Bathurst Inlet project is long dead, although a considerable sum of money was spent on feasibility studies. Gray’s Bay is designed to support both Izok and the High Lake deposit, which is similar to Izok but closer to tidewater.
Regrettably, the Gray’s Bay project, on its own, cannot be considered nation building because it focuses on a single company: MMG, which is 68% owned by China Minmetals. Also, even if the Hood River and Gondor base metal plays are included with Izok and High Lake, mining would not last much more than 15 years – hardly an economic prospect when the transportation infrastructure to access the resource could cost in the $1 billion range.
Two years ago the project was taken over by West Kitikmeot Resources (WKR), which seems to be re-orienting it to benefit the whole Slave Geologic Province (see earlier article) with all-weather road extensions that would ultimately replace the 600 kilometer long (and increasingly problematic) Tibbett to Contwyoto seasonal ice road.
Arctic Security Corridor
One working title seems to the be the Arctic Security Corridor, and it does appear to have tacit support from the Government of Northwest Territories (GNWT) . However, the GNWT has its own Slave Geologic Corridor Project, and although refused federal funding in 2019, is proceeding with a phased approach to build a 180 kilometer all-weather road extension between Tibbett and Lockhart Lakes. This is Phase 3 of a five phase project, with Phases 4 and 5 ultimately reaching the Nunavut border.
The distances in the GNWT project seem logical and well established, but there is some confusion between earlier Gray’s Bay proposals – which quoted 350 kilometers from Izok to the coast – and the newer approach, which excludes Izok but is only 230 kilometers from the end of Contwyoto Lake to tide water.
Mark Carney, Canada’s Prime Minister, mentioned the Gray’s Bay Port and Road as a nation-building project following a First Ministers meeting in June this year. However, there doesn’t appear to be any clear guideline from the federal Government as to how such a major infrastructure project should proceed, and how the GNWT corridor road should be combined with that being developed by WKR.
Technically, the Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB) would seem to be the appropriate vehicle for combining disparate visions into a sensible shovel-ready project, and in fact the CIB has put $3 million into the Gray’s Bay pot. However, a recent Request for Proposal from the CIB relating to Manitoba minerals and Churchill suggests that the bureaucrats there have their own wild and woolly ideas; their scope called, inter alia, for investigation of an all-water route from Churchill to Winnipeg.
Perhaps something sensible will transpire before the end of 2025. The best advice may be to watch this space.
Christopher Wright is the former president of The Mariport Group Ltd, a marine and port consulting company that he formed in 1989. After retiring in 2013, Wright joined WorleyParsons Canada (now Advisian) as a marine logistics specialist.
He has written two books: “Arctic Cargo; A History of Marine Transportation in Canada’s North” (2016) and “Of Penguins and Polar Bears, a History of Coldwater Cruising” (2020).
