Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew announced a new provincial sales tax exemption aimed at drawing private investment into the proposed expansion of the Port of Churchill, unveiling the measure Monday at the Canadian Global Growth Forum in Toronto during the first-ever Canada Investment Summit.
The exemption would apply to spending on a new energy corridor, liquefied natural gas facilities, upgrades to the railway connecting to the port, and improvements to marine icebreaking capacity, including ice-class ships needed to support shipping beyond the current short season.
“These new capital incentives make it easier for investors to get in on the ground floor of the largest project featured at the Canada Investment Summit,” Kinew said in a news release. The Manitoba government said a full list of projects eligible for the PST exemption will be released at a later date.
Push for Year-Round Shipping
The announcement follows the province’s release last month of findings from three studies examining the feasibility of extending the port’s shipping season, which currently runs for roughly four and a half months per year. The studies concluded that year-round shipping could be achievable with the use of a high-grade icebreaking vessel, though they cautioned that some ice is expected to persist in Hudson Bay in the coming decades even under global-warming projections, posing ongoing challenges.
Kinew has previously estimated the full scope of the project — including expansion of the port, upgrades to the Hudson Bay Railway, and construction of an offshore liquefied natural gas terminal in Hudson Bay — could cost between $70 billion and $80 billion. According to the studies, the offshore terminal would be necessary because the mouth of the Churchill River, where the port sits, is too narrow and shallow for certain vessels to navigate.
Federal Interest in the Project
The Port of Churchill expansion was previously named among a group of projects the federal government shortlisted last year as “transformative,” though officials have noted that substantial improvements would still be required before it could proceed at that scale. Kinew has said Prime Minister Mark Carney is hoping to see gas shipments from the project begin by 2030.
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