Q&A: Wawzonek ‘more confident’ than ever about major projects

Caroline Wawzonek says she is more confident now than ever that three long-contemplated mega projects will get built in the NWT.

During a visit to Yellowknife earlier this month, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the federal government was referring the proposed Mackenzie Valley Highway, Taltson hydro expansion and Arctic Economic and Security Corridor, or AESC, to the Major Projects Office

Wawzonek, the territorial minister responsible for strategic infrastructure, energy and supply chains, told Cabin Radio in an interview on Monday that “northerners should be excited, but we should also be wide eyed that there’s a lot that needs to happen, and that means a lot of coming together.”

The NWT minister recently met with officials from the federal Major Projects Office, or MPO, at the agency’s headquarters in Calgary about advancing the three projects in the territory.

She said the meeting included vice presidents from the federal agency that have been assigned to each of the projects: Robert Jones to the Mackenzie Valley Highway, Justin Ferby to AESC and Michelle Chislett to the Taltson project.

Wawzonek said the main next step to advancing the initiatives will be developing a “critical path” for each project, or setting out timelines, barriers and preliminary budgets.

“I’m more confident today than I think I’ve ever been,” she said.

“I’ve seen things move faster in the last two or three years with all the governments of the Northwest Territories coming together.”

Established in August 2025, the Major Projects Office is designed to to fast-track “nation-building” projects across Canada including ports, railways, energy corridors and clean energy initiatives.

Wawzonek described the agency as “the experts in building big things.”

“They are focused on delivering on the promise of nation building and, right now, that promise of nation building is building Canada in the North,” she said.

The minister said the role of the NWT and Indigenous governments going forward is “essential.”

“We need to be there throughout to ensure that those critical costs continue to reflect the values of northerners, the values of our government – which includes the values of partnerships with Indigenous nations.”

While some northern political leaders, industry representatives and residents have celebrated federal support for the NWT-based projects, some Conservative critics, environmental groups and others have expressed skepticism or concern.

Wawzonek encouraged northerns to get involved, attend engagement sessions and raise any issues they may have.

“Let’s talk about it now, let’s make sure that we have the capacity to resolve it,” she said, adding that the projects are “on a scale not seen in generations in the North.”

 This transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Emily Blake: You recently met with the Major Projects Office in Calgary about the Mackenzie Valley Highway, Taltson hydro expansion and the Arctic Economic and Security Corridor. What did you learn from that meeting?

Caroline Wawzonek: Well it certainly wasn’t the first meeting that I’ve had with the Major Projects Office. It’s just the first meeting that we’ve had since the prime minister’s announcement that all three projects are being formally referred to their office.

This meeting was really, I think, the first of what’s likely to be many meetings to talk about what that referral is going to mean, what some of the next steps are going to be, update them as to where we are at in terms of the progress that we’ve been making. Just to start to get the work that we have already underway with teams and partners here in the North aligned with their execution.

I mean, these guys are, what I would say is they’re the experts in building big things, and we want to bring that and align that with the work that we’re doing.

It was really a planning meeting. But it was really positive. I’m feeling pretty excited and looking forward to continuing. I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of meetings to come.

I understand the major projects office has assigned VPs to each of these projects. Are you able to share what kind of work they’re going to be doing?

We met with each of the VPs.

It’s a small entity, the MPO, but the group that they have, the vice presidents, are all people pulled, or at least to my knowledge, largely pulled from the private sector, people who’ve built things on a national scale. They have people assigned to each of our projects.

They also have people assigned, for instance, they have a vice president for Indigenous relationships and Indigenous engagement, they have someone assigned for financing, and they put all of that to bear on whatever projects are assigned to them. So for us, it’s all three of them.

The main next step that we are getting to is developing a critical path for each project. And discussing what that critical path will be and really aligning, again, their expertise in terms of how to build big things with our, I don’t know if I want to call it expertise, but certainly the understanding of the North and the way that the projects are moving forward.

So each project, of course, for us, has different relationships and different partnerships. And we want to make sure that the critical path that they’re lining up from the perspective of building something big and building it quickly, lines up with the delivery methodology that we’ve been expecting based on the relationships we’ve cultivated.

Can you explain what you mean by critical path?

Right now, I could sort of point to our own work internally, having an outline of timelines and next steps.

But I think, from their perspective, and, I want in some ways to sort-of say my starting point would be to defer to people who build major projects. I’m not going to profess that that’s my background. It is theirs, and it’s 30, 40, years of experience in some cases. But my understanding after meeting with them is that the critical path lays out, starting from today, what’s your 30 days, 60 days, 90 days key things that need to happen immediately, sets out timelines, sets out some preliminary budgets. Always mindful of what would be barriers or risks, and making sure that we have the right structure to overcome the barriers and to achieve the 30, 60, 90 day timelines.

Those are the short-term timelines, but also their office is really tasked with building national projects in a five-year timeline. So there’s those immediate, short-term steps of what do we need to get going right now? But it’s also with that view of, and even in the prime minister’s announcement, [he] said in operations early 2030s, that’s a five-year timeline. So you start with your short-term goals to achieve that long-term timeline, start to put some numbers on it. I mean all of that, I think, can be potentially in there.

And I’m saying all this not having seen a critical timeline from them yet, but knowing that we’re sending where we are at right now, the information that we and our project partners have today, and combining it with theirs. So that when we come out, we’ve got a critical path that involves where we’re at, our information, our partnerships, and their expertise.

You’ve touched on this a bit already, but can you explain what the Major Projects Office’s role is and how they’re going to help to actually advance these projects?

I mean, some of that is to be defined.

And I say that only in a sense that we’re not even two weeks out from the announcement. And it’s been kind of two weeks of establishing who their teams are for each [project], how we are going to relate one to the other, how we are going to be meeting, what will our project delivery teams look like? Because we’ll be relying on their technical expertise but with our sort-of northern knowledge and expertise, and when I say ours, I mean all governments in the Northwest Territories, not only GNWT. So some of it kind of remains to be seen as to what that project structure will look like in terms of working together.

But what they bring to bear, I have to say, it’s very impressive to hear some of the resumes of these folks. These are people who’ve built, whether it’s 100- megawatt hydro facilities, national scale pipelines and structures, they are major projects on a national basis. So the kinds of things that these three projects, I would say, meet that bill.

And exactly where we will all fit together? I guess you’ll really have to have me back in about a month when I’ve looked at what the critical paths and the critical timelines look like.

But they are focused on delivering on the promise of nation building, and right now, that promise of nation building is building Canada into the North. So I don’t have the details, but I actually feel pretty confident today, and more so than I did before all these announcements, as to exactly where this is going to land because these are the people that are being tasked with doing this, and they’re being assigned our projects.

Previously only, the Arctic Economic and Security Corridor was on a second tier list of major projects the federal government was considering advancing. What’s your understanding of what has changed from then until now, having these three projects referred to the office?

I know I’ve spoken many times in saying that I never felt constrained with our projects by saying only one was within the purview of their office. So the minute that office was announced, our technical team went down to meet with them, and I’ve since met with their CEO on a number of occasions, and have consistently talked about the North as a strategic nation-building project.

So people have asked: pick one? I’ve not picked one. I think you need all three. They are really different. And I even reread just carefully what was put out officially from the prime minister’s office, and they said that they’d gone from having one project, which was a strategy or strategic concept, to now actually having specific nation-building projects from that.

So, in some ways, it’s the evolution that I would have hoped for, which is you go from understanding that there’s a strategic concept of access and borders in the North that was required for nation building. And having now looked at the three territories and the scope of the geography of the North and the projects that were already underway, that’s what can actually deliver the next steps. So from strategy it’s now to delivery.

Premier Simpson, in his speech reacting to the three projects being referred to the Major Projects Office said that the territory’s work isn’t done. What’s your understanding of the process ahead and the role that territorial and Indigenous governments still need to play?

I mean the role of the territorial government and Indigenous governments, it’s essential.

This is making sure now that if we’re moving from the advocacy of wanting our projects to have federal support, now we’re at a stage of needing to ensure execution and delivery. Projects for northerners need to involve northerners. It goes without saying, it should go without saying.

So the role for us now, it’s early days, but it’s to make sure that the structure, whether it’s a critical path, how that critical path sees itself moving through relationships and engagements, partnerships. We need to be there throughout to ensure that those critical paths continue to reflect the values of northerners, the values of our government – which includes the values of partnership with Indigenous nations.

And I made that very clear to them when I was there Friday, and they were more than receptive. I think they know that that is the only way to build in a good way, and they’re going to be relying on us. There’s a recognition that, though they are experts in major projects and major project delivery, they’re certainly not experts in the different political realities of the North. So yeah, that is an integral part of what’s happening.

Talking about executing these projects, these are all billion or multi-billion dollar projects. Is there any sense of where the money is going to come from, if the federal government is willing to fund these projects?

I certainly can’t commit the federal government to anything, but the very clear sense I have is that we had moved from needing to advocate from an “if,” to now moving to a “how.”

So getting a more certain dollar estimate, and look, at any stage in the preliminary stage of a project, you’re still dealing with estimates. You try to refine those estimates, obviously, more and more and more as we go forward, and that is part of the work that they can bring to bear. They, again, will be no doubt supporting us and us supporting them to make sure that we have cost estimates that are realistic.

Certainly my strong sense right now is that the federal government wants to move from if to how. If that’s the case and their support continues in the way that it certainly sounds to have started out, then I’m expecting that they will be at the table to make sure that we are delivering and executing.

If you’re going to execute projects like this in five years, then it will depend upon the financial capacity of the feder al government, which is certainly beyond ours. There may well be other funders that come to the table, whether it’s the Canada Infrastructure Bank, obviously associated from the federal family, but they may also be able to help unlock different funding mechanisms.

So I think some of that funding still is yet to be determined. But short answer, I do expect the federal government now is seeing that building in the North is building Canada and there’s support.

All three of these projects are at least partly tied to potential mining development. Is there any sense that mining industry is going to support these projects? What ultimately happens if there are no mines?

I’m not really worried about there not being any mines.

I mean, part of the challenge that we’ve run into – certainly on the roadway that’s through the Arctic Economic and Security Corridor, but also with Taltson – before I even entered politics, there was a question of, well, which one of these do we need more? And both spun their wheels for a long time. The mineral resource industry or specific projects would say, “Well, when can you have clean energy available around Great Slave Lake?” And then the response is, “Well are you going to confirm that you’re going to buy?” And then the chicken and the egg would go on forever.

Can I say exactly which of the advanced [mining] projects that are asking us those questions move forward and move forward first? I can’t. But I can say that without access to power or transportation corridors those projects would be much less likely to advance. And with access through road projects, and/or energy access, or both, I think we will see that there are going to be [mining] projects that advance and probably faster. So, I mean, I’m not worried about that.

Do I expect them to support it? The mineral resource industry and I think chambers of commerce have been asking us to actually move the needle on these for certainly my time in office. But even before I got into office, progress was so slow.

Now we have a bit of a different challenge, which is we have all three, and we’re being told that all three need to happen and they need to happen immediately for the good of the country.

So, yeah, do I think there’s support from the business industry and from mineral resource industry? Absolutely. Do I think there’s opportunities to perhaps even secure some funding, or look at what the long-term return on investment will be? Probably. And I’m more than happy to have expertise in the financial folks that are at the MPO to help.

On the environmental side, there’s been some some concerns raised about the Arctic Economic and Security Corridor, particularly its impact on caribou. Alternatives North has also been fairly critical of the Taltson hydro expansion and questioned why that has been the focus, as opposed to a focus on community-led renewable resource projects. What’s your response to those concerns, or how are they being considered during this process?

On both roads, quite critical to the process for both is that any routing be done using, obviously, not only traditional engineering and sort-of Western approaches to science and geotechnical analysis, but also the traditional knowledge and Indigenous awareness of where caribou calving grounds are and migration herds, but using all of the best tools available to us.

In both cases, both routes have been modified just in the last couple of years. So we’re working very closely right now with Pehdzeh Ki First Nation, who were for, I think, a long time raising concerns around the routing [of the Mackenzie Valley Highway] and we’ve been involved with a fairly intensive process with them to make sure that the routing is utilizing their best available knowledge. And similarly, with the Arctic Economic and Security Corridor, right now there is a partnership arrangement between ourselves, as GNWT, but also the Yellowknives Dene First Nation and the Tłı̨chǫ Government for whom the values of ensuring caribou [are protected], that’s integral to these cultures. In addition to which, one of the things in the MOUs we’ve signed is to involve all of the Indigenous governments, and these are the values that are necessary for the North to advance projects like this, involving stewardship of the land and protection of caribou.

Quickly going to Taltson for a minute. Having access to Taltson’s hydro capacity, connecting the south and the north grids for 70 percent of the population, and providing redundancy of hydro to reduce the reliance on diesel and to actually be able to use power and energy to where it is required and limited for that size of the population, that is a huge movement forward and away from a constant reliance on diesel as our backup for both sides of it.

But it is not being done to the exclusion of other energy projects. One of the things I am still very excited about, and have been excited about for some time, there’s a meeting on the policy directives to the Public Utilities Board around power producer policy agreements so that communities can become power producers themselves, which is not something that we’s have in place before. It is one by one by one, which is not a good way to move forward on something efficiently. Integrated systems permitting and what do individual communities need? That work is underway right now. Engagements are happening right now. We have both utilities working together on this.

There’s other projects happening. We’ve got the micro hydro that is being looked at, Délı̨nę was looking at something, Łútsël K’é was looking to bring up something from about 10 years ago that sat on the shelf for the facility there. You know, battery systems, battery storage. There is so much work in this space, it cannot be only Taltson.

At the same time, to have micro-grids around the territory not linked one to the next, is not a long-term proposition that will … move those [communities] that continue to be isolated [forward] because redundancy always then falls to diesel.