The MLA for the Sahtu says businesses in the region face millions of dollars in lost revenue and increased shipping costs due to cancelled barges.
The NWT government announced last month it was cancelling resupply barges for Tulita and Norman Wells due to extremely low water levels.
Sahtu businesses estimate they could lose revenue amounting to $14 million and spend $500,000 in extra shipping fees, Danny McNeely told the legislature on Monday, and some have laid off staff as a result.
“While the Government of the Northwest Territories cannot change the low water levels throughout the Mackenzie basin, we can change how we respond to the impact on businesses,” McNeely said.
“Making businesses wait six to 12 months to ship supplies is not an option, as they can’t go without work during the construction season and still maintain staff, cashflow, and pay operating expenses.”
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He said residents “cannot weather the storm alone” and one firm had told him doing business in the Sahtu was now “bordering on impossible.”
McNeely called on the territorial government to look into airlifting goods into communities, as the GNWT did when barges were cancelled in 2018 and 2022. He wants subsidies to reduce cargo rates and fuel costs.
Buffalo Airways has already begun discounted cargo flights to the Sahtu, an “air barge” effort that is independent of the GNWT. Several companies have said they plan to use Buffalo’s service.
Caroline Wawzonek, the territory’s infrastructure minister, said flying goods into High Arctic communities when previous barges were cancelled cost just under $2 million.
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In those cases, Wawzonek said, the cancellations were late in the season. With much of this season scrapped even before the end of May, she said the territorial government can work directly with impacted people to determine how to manage cargo.
The minister said that includes considering whether companies had insurance, which she said Marine Transportation Services pushed for in the face of low water levels.
“We want to make sure that if we’re using public dollars, we’re putting them to the places where they are, in fact, needed now,” she said.
Wawzonek added fuel levels in Sahtu communities supplied by the territorial government will last until the winter resupply. (Supplies to Norman Wells are coordinated by Imperial Oil, which said in May it was working with customers to “develop alternative plans to supply fuel to the region.”)
