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MP Report - Sept. 21, 2014

Hope for Churchill
Niki Ashton new

Relief. That is the only way to describe the reaction to the announcement that a new northern-led consortium will be taking over the Hudson Bay rail line and the Port of Churchill.

Relief because it means that repairs will be made to the rail line. Relief because it means the port can reopen. Relief because OmniTrax will no longer be able to hold the community Churchill and the government of Canada to ransom.
But let’s be clear. What we saw with Churchill and the rail line didn’t just happen.

It was the result of a disastrous privatization by the Liberal government in 1997.
They sold the rail line to a US billionaire for virtually nothing. A billionaire who decided to shut down the port and the rail line while the federal government sat on the sidelines.

The solution was obvious. They needed to take back the rail line and the port under public ownership and work directly with northern communities on its future. Instead they wasted precious time contributing to the traumatic situation in Churchill.

What we need to do is learn the lesson. It makes no sense to privatize strategic assets like Churchill. At a time when the federal government is looking doing much the same with airports and other transportation Infrastructure we need to recognize the degree to which privatization has failed in the past.

The true credit for what has happened does not go to the federal government it goes to the Churchill and the northern First Nations that worked to find a solution.

I can’t say enough about the people of Churchill. They did not give up. They fought back. They will never give up on their vision, our vision of ensuring that Churchill achieves its true potential in the future.

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