I don’t remember seeing this on gCaptain. I stumbled upon it a few days ago and I thought I might share.
I’m not entirely sure of the course of events, but it seems to go something like this:
1931-1997: Canadian government operates Port of Churchill, mainly exporting wheat
1997: Canadian government sells the port to a U.S based holding company (OmniTRAX)
2012: Canadian government ends wheat board monopoly, and the port suffers drastic decreases in shipments
2015: OmniTRAX announces its intent to sell the port
July 2016: OmniTRAX announces it has found no buyer and will be shutting the port down, possibly after contacting the Canadian government for a bailout.
July 2016-present: The port exists in limbo while OmniTRAX negotiates its sale to a group of Native tribes
My thoughts:
It seems as if the whole affair has received a relatively small amount of media coverage, possibly because of the few people who are directly impacted, and even then the coverage has been sporadic. I understand this isn’t Thunder Bay, but whatever happened to the tough talk on Russia and the intense speculation about using the Northern Sea Route to bypass the Suez?
I think it’s a waste for the Canadian government to waste port infrastructure like that. I mean, from what I’ve read it seems that the Canadian military didn’t even care to have some sort of outpost there in the last decade or so.
Why privatize a port (to a foreign company no less) whose revenue depends exclusively on a government wheat monopoly? I mean, that’s pretty much the textbook definition of privatizing the profits and socializing the losses.
Anyways, I thought you old salts might enjoy more evidence of the much talked about demise of the maritime industry
we were talking about this in the A Mari Usque thread just before the shut-down. Its a shame for certain. We’ll see what happens after break-up this year: something may get started in Churchill in support of the new Oceans Protection Plan. I’m not totally current on the latest news, however, I’ve been at work and haven’t been reading the paper.
Itis surprising that this happens while Canada and USA appears to take less interest in their Arctic position.[/QUOTE]
Sorry. Too busy posing for the cover of GQ to think about the North right now. Maybe if you held it somewhere more stylish than Tromso. Trop froid, mon cher, trop froid.
[QUOTE=Emrobu;194681]Sorry. Too busy posing for the cover of GQ to think about the North right now. Maybe if you held it somewhere more stylish than Tromso. Trop froid, mon cher, trop froid.[/QUOTE]
More stylish??? Where do you propose, Tuktoyaktuk??
Murad Al-Katib, president and CEO of AGT, said the purchase of the line and port assets is an opportunity to develop an Arctic gateway.
“We can’t ignore the potential of the only rail link to an Arctic port in North America,” Al-Katib said in an interview Saturday.
“That gives the opportunity for this to be a natural resources corridor. And grain happens to be one of the abundant natural resources that we have in Western Canada,” he added.
…
“In the next 40 years, the world must produce the same amount of food as we produced in the last 10,000 years of civilization. So we’re looking at this as a long-term opportunity,” he said.
“Yields are rising. We’re becoming more efficient in our production and we have to optimize our freight corridors. I think there’s going to be room for Churchill to be one of the gateways that’s present within the system.”
This Katib guy for Minister of Commerce and Trade, or Infrastructure.
