Northern Inroads

While Canada ignores the Arctic’s economic potential, China is poised to invest

- GLORIA DICKIE

THE VAST mineral deposits of zinc and copper near IZOKLake, in the Northwest Territories, lay glittering but ultimately un­ touchable until August 2019, when trans­ port minister Marc Garneau pledged $21.5 million in federal funding toward the first phase of development for the Grays Bay Road and Port Project, a trans­ portation network designed to cash in on the opening of the Arctic. This money would add to the $40 million allocated to building a series of roads across the Nunavut– Northwest Territories border, which will help connect IZOKLake to the deepwater port at Nunavut’s Grays Bay, located along the increasingly ice­free Northwest Passage sea route that leads to Asia.

In 2011, MMG Limited, a multinational mining corporation, expressed interest in building a road to open up some of the Arctic’s remote but lucrative min­ ERALreserves. Standing to benefit most from this would be the corporation’s pri­ mary shareholder: the Chinese govern­ment. The tremendous cost of the road and port, however, ultimately made the project economically unviable for MMG, which halted further development, in 2013, in hopes that Canada would pick up the shovel. “On behalf of MMG, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the Canadian government for their support and funding,” CEO Geoffrey Gao said in a press release following Garneau’s pledge. “Road and port access is the key to unlocking the IZOKCorridor.”