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.
The Australian Experience with Resources, Infrastructure Corridors and Supply Chains
Ian Satchwell
The School of Public Policy Publications
Volume 15 • Issue 35 • January 2023
The North of Canada and the North of Australia are both resource-rich, but have underdeveloped infrastructure, small, scattered populations and high proportions of inhabitants who are Indigenous. The experiences of developing Australia’s North hold lessons for Canada. While discussion in this paper focuses primarily on supply chains for transport of outputs and inputs, another important consideration is infrastructure for people, without which resources projects cannot be developed and operated.
Indigenous Land Rights in Australia: Lessons for a Canadian Northern Corridor
Sharon Mascher
The School of Public Policy Publications
Volume 15 • Issue 33 • December 2022
If the CNC is to be a forward-looking, nation-building project, it must be conceptualized in a manner that ensures respect for the rights and interests of Indigenous communities along the corridor. Given its shared British colonial history with Canada, Australia’s experience may offer some relevant lessons for the CNC conceptualization. Several important foundational differences between the settler legal systems of these countries inform the development of the law and the transferability of lessons.
A Socio-Economic Review of the Impacts of Northwest Territories' Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk Highway 10
G. Kent Fellows, Alaz Munzur, and Jennifer Winter
Canadian Journal of Regional Science
Volume 45 • Number 3 • December 2022
This paper investigates the likely socio-economic effects on the community of Tuktoyaktuk from the completion of the all-season Highway 10 (the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway) in the Northwest Territories. Analysis is based on estimated relationships between community remoteness and quantifiable socio-economic metrics using the recently developed Index of Remoteness and associated agglomeration data from Statistics Canada.
The Territorial and Socio-Economic Characteristics of the Digital Divide in Canada
Katharina Koch
Canadian Journal of Regional Science
Volume 45 • Number 2 • December 2022
The digital divide in Canada has gained significant attention from policymakers and the public in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic enhances the vulnerability of residents in rural and Indigenous communities that lack high-speed Internet access which affects their residents’ ability to participate in an online work and learning environment. As the digital divide in Canada persists, this paper explores current federal funding initiatives and their effectiveness in supporting broadband deployment across rural and Indigenous communities. The analysis shows inequalities regarding broadband access and funding distribution in Canada which also stem from a lack of democratic efficacy during federal hearings.
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.
