While the NWT was left off a new list of major federal projects announced on Thursday, the territory’s finance minister says she is “encouraged to see Arctic energy and northern infrastructure remain central to the federal agenda.”
Energy projects involving the Yukon and Nunavut are among those being newly referred by Prime Minister Mark Carney to his Major Projects Office.
Despite the NWT’s lack of inclusion in that announcement, finance minister Caroline Wawzonek said projects like the Mackenzie Valley Highway, Arctic Economic and Security Corridor and Taltson hydro expansion continue to have “strong momentum.”
The Arctic Security Corridor was previously included by Carney in a second-tier list of national priorities.
“Work on our priority projects does not begin or end with updates to a federal list,” said Wawzonek, who is also the territory’s minister of large infrastructure projects.
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She pointed to Arctic-focused investments announced in the federal budget last week that she said could help support projects in the NWT.
Wawzonek said NWT MP Rebecca Alty’s participation in a Taltson steering committee meeting earlier this week was also a sign the federal government takes projects like these seriously. She said she will meet with the boss of Carney’s federal Major Projects Office on Friday.
In British Columbia on Thursday, initiatives referred by Carney to the Major Projects Office included critical minerals projects in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, a liquefied natural gas facility in BC, a hydro project in Nunavut and a transmission line project from BC to Yukon.
