The Canadian Northern Corridor Research Program includes multiple studies, across several areas of expertise, to address the many facets of the corridor concept including financial, legal, geographical, socio-economic, environmental, regulatory, governance and policy dimensions. The purpose is to provide the information and analysis necessary to establish the feasibility of the Canadian Northern Corridor.
Fostering Resilience and Adapting to Climate Change in the Canadian North: Implications for Infrastructure in the Proposed Canadian Northern Corridor
S. Jeff Birchall, Sarah Kehler, and Nicole Bonnett
The School of Public Policy Publications
Volume 15 • Issue 27 • September 2022
Transportation infrastructure has remained constrained across northern Canada. Significant challenges exist for northern infrastructure due to isolation, restricted access and extraordinary environmental conditions — all of which climate change is projected to radically intensify. This paper examines the potential roles of both hard and soft adaptation strategies in the reduction of infrastructure vulnerability.
Optimal Routing of Wide Multi-Modal Energy and Infrastructure Corridors
Mehdi Salamati, Xin Wang, Jennifer Winter, and Hamidreza Zareipour
International Journal of Geo-Information
Volume 11 • Issue 8 • August 2022
A multi-modal corridor accommodates multiple modes of energy and transportation infrastructure within the same right-of-way. The existing literature on corridor routing in raster space often focuses on one mode with no consideration of the width. This is not a realistic assumption, especially if multiple modes are to co-exist within the same wide right-of-way. Moreover, newer routing methods that consider corridor width cannot take into account multi-modality and the arrangement of modes within a corridor. This paper develops two multi-modal wide-corridor routing methods using raster data.
Differentiating the Canadian North for Coherent Infrastructure Development
Katharina Koch
The School of Public Policy Publications
Volume 15 • Issue 19 • June 2022
Infrastructure Canada has noted that the current “one-size fits all” approach to northern infrastructure development is inefficient as it is largely premised on southern conditions and is not responsive to the unique geography of the Canadian North. This briefing paper considers how the Canadian Northern Corridor (CNC) concept may offer a solution to some of the challenges of northern development while cautioning that meaningful development in the region must recognize the diversity of the northern landscape and consider existing Indigenous practices.
Community-based Environmental Monitoring (CBEM) for Meaningful Incorporation of Indigenous and Local Knowledge
Evgeniia (Jen) Sidorova and Luis D. Virla
The School of Public Policy Publications
Volume 15 • Issue 15 • June 2022
Meaningful incorporation of Indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) in climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts is key to accelerating effective action plans. This study argues that community-based environmental monitoring (CBEM), if done properly, can be more effective in incorporating ILK than environmental impact and monitoring based only on Western science. The paper examines successful elements, benefits, challenges and limitations in the existing CBEM studies that incorporate ILK to recognize how to design comprehensive CBEM policy for large-scale infrastructure projects such as the Canadian Northern Corridor (CNC) concept.
An Overview of Major Engineering Challenges for Developing Transportation Infrastructure in Northern Canada
Eva Stephani, Julie Malenfant Lepage and Guy Doré
The School of Public Policy Publications
Volume 15 • Issue 14 • May 2022
The proposed corridor crosses extensive areas of permafrost, including sporadic to continuous permafrost distribution. It also travels through areas that are not perennially frozen, but that are exposed to seasonal freeze-thaw cycles and to other cold-region processes that can become geohazards for infrastructure. This overview paper focuses mainly on permafrost-related issues because of the significant challenges and important knowledge gaps in permafrost.
Reducing Transaction Costs on Infrastructure Corridor Projects in Canada
André Le Dressay, Jason Calla and Jason Reeves
The School of Public Policy Publications
Volume 15 • Issue 11 • March 2022
This paper uses a comparative systems analysis to identify specific transaction costs in four areas — historic, infrastructure development process, fiscal and economic systems. We argue these transaction costs can be significantly reduced by systematically implementing Indigenous fiscal, infrastructure and lands jurisdictions because this will permanently ensure that Indigenous communities and people are able to receive similar fiscal and economic benefits generated from infrastructure corridor projects as those enjoyed by other Canadians and other governments.
An Overview and Assessment of Key Constitutional Issues Relevant to the Canadian Northern Corridor
Dwight Newman
The School of Public Policy Publications Volume 15 • Issue 9 • March 2022
This report considers, at a high level, some of the key constitutional considerations associated with the development of the Northern Corridor. It considers both the ways in which the Canadian Constitution may facilitate such a development and ways in which it may offer barriers to such a project.
The School of Public Policy Publications Infrastructure Policy Trends • March 2022
The use of REEs (rare earth elements) has become fundamental to many high-technology end-use applications including the electronics and transportation sectors, but manufacturers may face significant challenges to procuring sufficient REE supplies due to supply-chain disruptions and long project lead times for new mines. A strong policy agenda is needed if Canada is to position itself as the “global supplier of choice” for these minerals.
Subarctic Corridors in Northern Quebec: Is the Canadian Northern Corridor Concept Aligned with Quebec's Historical Development?
Thomas Stringer and Marcelin Joanis
Journal of The Arctic Institute of North America
Volume 75 • Number 1 • March 2022
This paper groups Quebec’s infrastructure developments into three main phases, synthesizes each phase, and critically compares them to the proposed Northern Corridor concept (NCC). No research has yet examined the NCC’s complementarity with Quebec’s history of northern infrastructure development. Obstacles arising from the conciliation of past developments with the NCC include the unfitness of using existing infrastructures in Quebec for a Pan-Canadian corridor and differing development trajectories at the provincial and federal levels.
Canadian Arctic Marine Transportation Issues, Opportunities and Challenges
Frédéric Lasserre
The School of Public Policy Publications Volume 15 • Issue 6 • February 2022
This paper examines some of the trends shaping the shipping industry in Canada’s Arctic, and what these changes might mean for the construction of a Canadian Northern Corridor. To what extent could expanded shipping in the Canadian arctic be supported by a corridor, and what are some of the economic trends from a commercial perspective? Given the remote and extreme conditions, what are some of the most realistic scenarios for economic, industrial and other drivers for northern marine development in Canada?
