Indigenous partnership will drive the future of the Port of Churchill
Manitoba is creating what it says is the first governance structure of its kind in Canada: a Crown Indigenous Corporation that will give First Nations and Métis communities shared decision-making authority and direct revenue from the development of the Port of Churchill.
Jamie Moses, Manitoba’s Minister of Business, Mining, Trade and Job Creation, described the new entity in an interview at the Arctic Encounter Symposium in Anchorage.
“What we’ve articulated is a company that is shared decision-making between First Nations, Métis and the government,” Moses said. “But yet, as that project unfolds and there’s revenue from that, it will be shared with the First Nations.”
Indigenous communities, he said, won’t simply be consulted — they’ll have a governing role.
“They have direct access to control their own operations and own development of that project,” he said.
Moses said the corporation has no precedent in Canadian law.
“There’s no model for this,” he said. “We’re actually going to be the first of its kind.”
The corporation is being developed in partnership with the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs and Indigenous communities across the province. Moses said the government is actively forming the board and working out the structure in collaboration with First Nations leadership. Legislation has not yet been introduced, though Premier Wab Kinew. Canada’s first First Nations premier, outlined the initiative in his State of the Province address before Christmas.
Days before the Anchorage conference, Kinew met with Prime Minister Mark Carney in Ottawa, where the two signed an agreement on unified permitting for major projects and announced Churchill as a shared federal-provincial priority.
“We’re getting a huge alignment from the federal government, the province, from First Nations and community,” Moses said, “and moving ahead with this, what we think is a transformational project for the country.”
Churchill, on the western shore of Hudson Bay, is Canada’s only Arctic deep-sea port connected to the national railway network. The province’s development plan includes enhancing rail capacity and expanding energy exports.
The approach reflects a broader pattern in Manitoba’s resource development. A new gold mine under construction in the province has signed two impact benefit agreements with local First Nations. Of the 34 critical minerals designated by the federal government, 30 have been discovered in Manitoba — many of them under-explored. Moses said the province sees major potential, particularly given growing demand from the EV market, data centers, and the energy transition, but insisted that development must happen collaboratively.
“What we do in our mining projects is we try to work hand in hand and get support from local communities and from First Nations,” he said.
Moses framed the Crown Indigenous Corporation as Manitoba’s answer to the federal government’s call for major Arctic development, but on terms that center the people most affected.
“We want to create a project that really benefits first and foremost the people of Manitoba,” he said. “The First Nations, the Métis and the Northerners who are going to be the ones who are feeling really the economic opportunities — and want them to be able to reap the economic benefits.”
