Former MLA ‘dismayed’ by YK council vote supporting Nunavut road

Former Yellowknife MLA Kevin O’Reilly says he is “disappointed and dismayed” by city council’s approach to endorsing the Arctic Security Corridor.

The corridor is a major infrastructure project that would link Nunavut and Yellowknife by road if built. It isn’t currently funded but has been mentioned more than once by Prime Minister Mark Carney as an example of a nation-building project he wants to support.

At a meeting in June, councillors passed a resolution formalizing the city’s support for the road, which would stretch northeast to Nunavut and the Arctic coast. 

In a letter written that month – but only made public in the past week as part of a council agenda – O’Reilly said councillors had dispensed with the required public notice and reached a conclusion without considering the possible environmental consequences of an all-season road across the tundra.

Council’s support for the Arctic Security Corridor – previously known as the Slave Geological Province road – came after a presentation from Caroline Wawzonek, the NWT’s minister responsible for major infrastructure builds.

Wawzonek and others say the project would strengthen Canadian Arctic sovereignty and security by building a 600-km all-season road from Yellowknife to Nunavut’s Grays Bay port.

“I watched the GNWT presentation for any mention of the environmental impacts of the so-called Arctic Security Corridor and there was none,” O’Reilly wrote in a June 19 letter to mayor and council.

“This project would slice through the range of the Bathurst caribou herd which is at a critically low level of about 6,240 animals, down from about 470,000. This project would cause irreversible and detrimental impacts to the herd that is already on the brink of extinction.

“Who speaks for the caribou? Clearly it is not GNWT.”

The resolution passed by council describes Yellowknife as “a gateway to resource development to the Northwest Territories as a whole, and both the Kivalliq and Kitikmeot regions of Nunavut.”

The city “supports Canada’s selection of the Arctic Security Corridor as a project of National significance,” the resolution stated.

City Hall also pledges to “work collaboratively with all other governments to maximize benefits for all peoples of the Northwest Territories specifically and Canada broadly and make joint investments that ensure Canadian Arctic sovereignty and prosperity.”

O’Reilly, a former executive director of a diamond mining environmental oversight body, served two terms as Frame Lake’s MLA from 2015 to 2023.

In his letter, he said council needed to have held a more detailed discussion about the project before holding a vote and formalizing its resolution.

“Before you conclude that I am against any sort of resource development or large infrastructure projects, I have also been on the public record that if there is one project worth proceeding with, it would be the Mackenzie Valley Highway,” O’Reilly wrote.

“Council should ensure it is fully informed before offering unconditional support for large infrastructure projects brought forward by GNWT. We should not dispense with opportunities for public input, that are hallmarks of pluralistic democracies, in the rush to make decisions.”

The letter appeared on the agenda for Monday evening’s council meeting this week.

Council elected to take the letter “as information” without further discussion.

In June, councillor Steve Payne said the Arctic Security Corridor could provide some optimism in the face of the NWT’s economic uncertainty.

“In the last while, people have been walking around with their heads down or thinking about the end of diamond mines,” Payne told Wawzonek at the time.

“But I’m actually getting a little bit of optimism from you guys when it comes to what’s on the horizon up here for resource development. I’m hoping that the public is going to start seeing this as well, because I believe we need some positive news up here to get people back to where we once were.”