The NWT government is working toward setting up an arm’s-length agency to help deliver the Mackenzie Valley Highway – and potentially other projects – deputy premier Caroline Wawzonek told Cabin Radio in Ottawa.
The plan is to create “an execution entity” that moves project delivery outside the existing structure of the territorial government, Wawzonek said. “We also have not built an 800-kilometre road in the Northwest Territories, right?”
That road – from Wrigley to Inuvik – is one of three major projects being advanced in the territory alongside the Arctic Corridor to Nunavut and Taltson hydro expansion. Billions of dollars in new defence spending is also coming to the territory.
The federal government’s Major Projects Office is helping the GNWT look at the legal parameters for such an execution entity, Wawzonek said, adding the territory’s strategic infrastructure team meets with the MPO almost daily on a range of major projects.
“I’d compare it to a Crown corporation because that’s the concept most people find makes a bit of sense,” Wawzonek said of the new agency envisaged. “But essentially, it’s a government agency, and they would then be the entity that oversees the delivery.”
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Crown corporations are structured like private corporations but owned by a government.
A spokesperson for the GNWT said the new entity would initially focus on the Mackenzie Valley Highway. Whether it could handle other major projects was not yet decided but had not been ruled out, they added.
Wawzonek said to expect more details “in the next couple months” and added the GNWT wants this set up before the end of the year. The GNWT hopes to start construction on the Mackenzie Valley Highway in 2028.
“The vision is to have something that is a little more nimble than what government processes and systems are,” said Wawzonek, describing the execution entity as a home for operational decisions that move projects forward.
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‘One place’ project review tool for NWT
Wawzonek was in Ottawa for Tuesday’s Canada 2020 summit, where policymakers, politicians, industry and more met to discuss how to deliver transformational projects.
She shared the stage with Mark Cliffe-Phillips, executive director of the Mackenzie Valley Review Board, for a panel on Arctic sovereignty and development in the north.
Cliffe-Phillips said although new federal legislation to speed up project approvals – Bill C-39 – does not affect the NWT process, the review board is still looking at the same principles to streamline its own work.
“We’re working on a major projects review tool where all the information for a project is going into one place,” he said, adding that currently this information is often scattered across different government agencies and Indigenous websites.
A unified project review page will allow everybody to follow not just the assessment and approval process, but also how the project is fulfilling its commitments, he said, including whether it is in compliance and how engagements and partnerships are playing out in real time.
