Sahtu leaders welcome Ottawa's support for Mackenzie Valley Highway after decades of work
CBC
Chief Jamie Moses of Pehdzeh Ki First Nation enthusiastically welcomed news on Thursday that Ottawa is supporting the Mackenzie Valley Highway. And he spoke of the potential it has to transform his community in Wrigley moving forward.
"That's the one thing we've been really trying to secure at home," he said at an event held at the Legislative Assembly in Yellowknife Thursday evening. "Not only better services, but opportunities for the future and for now."
Moses was one of many Indigenous government leaders from the Sahtu who publicly supported the highway project following Prime Minister Mark Carney's announcement that construction on the highway would begin this summer.
The announcement was part of a larger one about major project support.
Carney also pledged $35 billion in defence and infrastructure investments for the North, with the N.W.T. set to receive a significant part.
The Mackenzie Valley Highway project was one of four northern projects referred to the Major Projects Office (MPO) Thursday by Ottawa. Three of them are in the N.W.T., placing the territory second only to British Columbia for the number of major projects referred to the office.
The four projects join 11 others across the country billed as "nation-building" in announcements last September and November.
The MPO's role is to help fast-track nation-building projects by clearing red tape and securing private investment.
The referral does not guarantee the projects will happen, Premier R.J. Simpson said Thursday, and work remains to be done to deliver them.
That includes clarifying how much of the costs Ottawa is willing to pay and at what speed.
Nevertheless, Carney said construction on the Mackenzie Valley Highway's first phase connecting Wrigley to Norman Wells will begin this summer.
He said it marked the end of a record of "false starts" over decades for the highway, a project he said has been envisioned since the late 1950s.
Moses said the project does not only signal economic opportunity, but also a way to enhance services in the communities.
"We're using this as sort of a leverage too to talk with government," he said. "We know that we're the gateway nation to this project, and we don't have any nurses, we don't have no RCMP."
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