The federal government is expected to say on Wednesday it is preparing to make the Mackenzie Valley Highway Canada’s first “project of national interest.”
The announcement is due to take place at 8am on Wednesday at the territorial legislature in Yellowknife.
Two officials familiar with the announcement said two other projects, including the Grays Bay Port and Road portion of the Arctic Corridor linking the NWT and Nunavut, will also feature.
Being labelled a project of national interest under the Building Canada Act carries significant consequences, including a fast-tracking of regulatory approvals.
The NWT government is expected to use Wednesday’s announcement to stress that the territory’s own regulatory processes will continue, even as some federal processes are condensed.
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Proposed by the GNWT for decades but until recently largely ignored at the federal level, the Mackenzie Valley Highway is now on course to be the first project both referred to the Major Projects Office and subsequently declared to be in the national interest.
It will connect the NWT’s Dehcho region, where Canada’s highway network currently ends, to the Sahtu and eventually the Beaufort Delta. Communities along the route have said an all-season highway, instead of the existing mix of winter roads and barge resupply, could transform their economies.
The national-interest declaration – which won’t formally occur on Wednesday but is expected in the coming months – adds the highway to a currently blank list of national-interest projects to be expedited.
That will be done by “streamlining federal review and approval processes to increase regulatory certainty, helping attract capital, strengthening our industries, and moving towards greater sovereignty and resilience while respecting Indigenous rights and protecting the environment,” the federal government states on its website.
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Wednesday’s announcement is expected to assert that Ottawa is “considering” the Mackenzie Valley Highway as a project of national interest, wording that will allow formal consultation – including with Indigenous governments – to begin.
Indigenous governments along the proposed highway’s route have recently signalled their enthusiasm for the project, signing an agreement to work together on it, while making clear that they have not provided final approval.
Legislation introduced by Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government to fast-forward major projects states that Ottawa must announce its plan to designate a project as being in the national interest at least 30 days before that actually comes into effect. Consultation must take place with any Indigenous peoples who may be adversely affected. However, there is no requirement for broader public consultation.
Premier’s five-year timeline
Last week, NWT Premier RJ Simpson told Inuvik’s Arctic Development Expo that he believes the highway can be built – not just started, but completed – within five years.
“We are on the cusp of starting construction, breaking ground next year and hopefully finishing that all the way up to the Dempster within a few years,” Simpson said, referring to the Dempster Highway that connects the Yukon to Inuvik and the Arctic coast.
“We’re not talking 10, 15, 20 years out. We’re talking, you know, five years out. That’s my vision for that connectivity,” the premier continued.
“That is going to transform the region. That’s going to open up economic opportunities, that’s going to create stronger connection between communities and between our jurisdictions.”
On Tuesday, environmental advocacy group the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society said the federal fast-tracking process for major projects like the Mackenzie Valley Highway and Grays Bay road “could have some of its most far-reaching consequences in Canada’s North,” pointing to concern about the roads overlapping caribou migration routes and calving grounds.
“The proposal’s compression of complex assessments into one year and the potential to override Species at Risk protections are particularly alarming in northern contexts,” CPAWS stated, “where cumulative impacts, Indigenous land rights, and ecological relationships are complex and poorly understood by southern decision-makers.”
