Corbella: How an infrastructure right-of-way could be Trudeau’s legacy

If Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wants to leave a lasting positive legacy that will be remembered by Canadians for all time he’ll need to do more than legalize marijuana, hike taxes and run record deficits. That’s why Trudeau would be wise to heed the recommendations of a Senate committee report born from research originating at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy.

A national northern infrastructure corridor “will have as revolutionary an impact on today’s Canadian economy as the coast-to-coast railway did in the 1800s,” the Standing Senate Committee on Banking Trade and Commerce states in a 48-page report that it released last week.

“Not since Sir John A. Macdonald’s National Policy in the 1870s has Canada had such an opportunity to build such a monumental infrastructure project with the potential to transform the country’s economy,” said Senator David Tkachuk, chair of the Senate committee.

The Senate report, entitled, National Corridor: Enhancing and Facilitating Commerce and Internal Trade, proposes the building of an east-west right-of-way through Canada’s north and near north, that would accommodate railways, highways, pipelines, electrical transmission lines and communications networks.

The Senate report acknowledges that it gleaned this idea from a study by the U of C’s School of Public Policy and Montreal-based CIRANO, authored by Andrei Sulzenko and G. Kent Fellows, who write that Canada’s prosperity largely depends on 19th- and 20th-century accomplishments.

“Canada was built by visionaries who were able to overcome massive geographic and topographic challenges to create a great trading country, bound together and made successful by infrastructure projects like the transcontinental railways, highways and the St. Lawrence Seaway,” states the 2016 U of C paper, called Planning for Infrastructure to Realize Canada’s Potential: The Corridor Concept.

However, as Canada approaches the 150th anniversary of Confederation on July 1, “today’s Canada faces serious challenges to its continued growth and prosperity as a trading country; challenges that are political and economic as well as geographic,” states the U of C report.

That’s a polite way of saying it’s become virtually impossible to build critical infrastructure anymore in this country. Canada has entered into an era of economic anarchy where elected politicians — such as B.C.’s Green leader Andrew Weaver and B.C. NDP leader John Horgan vow to stop already approved infrastructure projects, such as Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline, that have followed the rule of law and gone through onerous and costly federal environmental study and regulatory processes.

The 7,000-km-long northern corridor is a “practical and focused response” revolving around the need for “government to do what government should do in terms of infrastructure — create the environment in which private investment, properly regulated, can be applied to projects without intransigent “one-off” regulatory processes for a new right of way for each project,” urges the U of C report.

Besides helping making it possible for more of Canada’s goods to reach tidewater ports and therefore better access to Asian and European markets, the northern corridor will provide “benefits to indigenous people” by spurring economic growth and bring in new jobs as well as lower the energy intensity of transportation in the north and the costs of goods and services.

Other potential benefits of a national corridor include decreased traffic on southern highways and railways, and it would also help Canada assert its Arctic sovereignty.

Renowned economist Jack Mintz, President’s Fellow at the School of Public Policy, says Australia has created these infrastructure corridors and they have been highly successful. Mintz says he was on a panel in Australia and a Canadian company that had built a large infrastructure project there said a project in Australia took seven to eight months for approval whereas in Canada a similar project takes many years. That is affecting Canada’s competitiveness and reputation as a safe country to invest in.

Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, will forever be remembered as the man who used ribbons of steel to connect this country together and bring B.C. into Confederation. Pierre Trudeau will eternally be credited with repatriating Canada’s Constitution and Brian Mulroney will always be recognized for negotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement and combating acid rain.

What nation-building legacy will the younger Trudeau leave? If he observes the recommendations of the Senate and truly considers this idea, his impact on the future well-being of this country will be immense, ensuring Canada’s next 150 years are as blessed as the first.

Source: Calgary Herald