Right in the centre - Is it viable?
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- Published on Thursday, August 25, 2016
By Ken Waddell
Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press
The viability of industries and communities has come into sharp focus lately. The Port of Churchill was dealt the most recent in a series of death blows with the closure of the Omnitrax shipping port. The Churchill port has not been viable for a long time, perhaps never. To operate, it takes huge government subsidies and enforced usage by way of the former Canadian Wheat Board.
People talk about tourism and how important it is. Wapusk National Park near Churchill had only 196 visitors in 2014-15. Churchill itself had many more than that, but like many towns, tourism is an add-on, it’s not the main industry.
Churchill has big problem. Now The Pas, with the closing of the paper plant, has a big problem too. All of the north has a problem because, in the strictest sense, northern communities are not viable. The same can be said of many small southern communities as well. Hospital ERs have closed, many schools are gone. The grain elevator business has amalgamated into a few mega terminals. Farms are becoming larger every year. The corporate world realized the trends and have helped fulfill them by creating larger and larger farm dealerships across the country. Long term viability is a problem faced by many Canadians.
Doubtless, the government will be called upon to act, but how well has that worked out in the past? Churchill’s viability as a port has always been in question because the rail line isn’t a strong line either physically or economically. There simply isn’t enough business at either end or along the line to create a viable railroad. In the early days of railway building, the transcontinental railway was supposed to go much further north, initially. It kept getting re-routed further and further south, as the northern parts of the great plains were not populated enough or developed enough in the 1880s to support a railway. Hence the main line creeps along the most southerly part of Canada where there was some development and where most of the development is still located.
If Churchill had been viable, the grain companies would have invested in it. Instead, the great lakes and west coast ports handle almost all the grain from Western Canada. Churchill has been a dream, but it hasn’t attracted the business, the investment or the political will. The route to Churchill is a long one and it’s tough to build railway on muskeg. Geography played a huge role in the construction of the CPR. They were able to build all across Saskatchewan in one summer because of the suitability of the terrain and that was a huge boost. That one summer in the 1880s gave the railway quick access to a huge swath of grain land and it became a mainstay of the CPR. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a lot stuff to haul out along the Churchill line and only a very small percentage of the grain was ever shipped through Churchill. The problem at The Pas is similar.
Local, provincial and federal levels of government have a huge problem on their hands. It appears Churchill and The Pas could simply die off. The whole northern strategy needs a major re-thinking. If Churchill and The Pas are to become viable again, the transportation issue has to be solved. The Pas has a highway plus rail and air travel. Churchill doesn’t have a road. Neither do many other communities. A decision is needed on transportation systems, a searing question that should have been asked a long time ago, but still needs to be answered now.
There is one over arching principle that has been almost completely ignored and that is national sovereignty. If we don’t beef up our northern presence and development, Russia will. People scorned John Diefenbaker on his northern vision in the 1950s. They scorned Stephen Harper for going north every year and waving the Canadian flag. The skeptics are reaping the despair of that scorning today. Canada should put a Canadian Naval base at Churchill. They should strengthen the north and seek all kinds of private investment to do so. If we are going to retain any sense of economic or defence viability in the north, we have to make decisive moves. But let’s learn from the mistakes of investment in the CPR 140 years ago and Omnitrax in the last decade. If huge amounts of taxpayer money gets put on the table, the recipients can’t be allowed to abandon that investment. Taxpayers have paid for thousands of miles of railway lines that were later abandoned. Just saying.
