The city of Churchill, Manitoba is famous for its Polar Bear tourism. I would love to visit there and may do so in the next ten years - aurora borealis viewing too. It is also the largest port city in the Canadian Arctic and that port just closed down.
From Canada's Bell News Network:
Port of Churchill’s closure stirs calls for government intervention
For the first time since the Great Depression, Canada will soon have no deepwater link to the Arctic.
As of Aug. 8, the Port of Churchill will cease operations. While the owner – Denver-based OmniTrax – has not responded to multiple requests from BNN to confirm the shutdown, the mayor of the northern Manitoba town told Commodity News Service Canada all shipments will be suspended by the start of next week.
“There was no communication from OmniTrax at all on this decision,” said Mike Spence, mayor of the community of about 750 people, where roughly one in ten residents has historically been employed at the port. Churchill resident and port employee Joe Stover posted a photo of the layoff notice he received on Twitter earlier this week.
“The Port of Churchill just laid everyone (myself included) off,” Stover wrote in an earlier post. “[They] told us there will be no grain season this year.”
And the grain season is critical:
According to the Western Grain Elevators Association, the Canadian grain harvest this year could be as high as 74 million tonnes, which would approach the 76.8-million-tonne record set in 2014. Bumper crop expectations has only served to heighten concerns over the Port of Churchill shutting down.
Thank you increased carbon dioxide gas - it is plant food after all. Of course, all that we need to do is follow the money:
Last week, Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister revealed a secret agreement between OmniTrax and the previous NDP provincial government whereby the company received more than $800,000 from the province to help cover operating costs associated with the 2015 shipping season.
Pallister said OmniTrax shut down the port in hopes of convincing the new government to renew the deal, but the premier refused, telling reporters “I don’t respond ever to threats.”
And this:
Niki Ashton, NDP Member of Parliament for Churchill-Keewatinook Aski, launched a formal petition earlier this week calling on the federal government to re-nationalize the port. Despite a three-year-old federal-provincial task force report calling for the need to “explore new directions” for the Port of Churchill “with a greater sense of urgency,” the political appetite for action has waned.
Ottawa has been subsidizing the port since 2012 when the Canadian Wheat Board’s grain marketing monopoly was shut down. The annual payment – equivalent to $9.20 per tonne of grain shipped through the port – was scheduled to expire next year.
Business as usual - glad that there has been a change of government and that the new premier (Brian Pallister) is standing firm. A business should not be able to hold a national property for ransom.
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