Northern Corridor Research Program: Phase 2 Final Report

The Canadian Northern Corridor is an idea that responds to Canada’s need to increase interregional and international trade, provide services to northern communities, and establish a broadly accepted approach to large-scale infrastructure development. Since 2015, the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary has undertaken research and public engagement sessions to study the feasibility, acceptability, and desirability of a coherent and unified approach to national and regional infrastructure development in Canada. This paper stands as a final abbreviated summary report of the research and engagement program to date. The entire program comprises well over 40 individual studies conducted by over 50 contributing researchers and authors across eight research themes over the past 8 years. As such, this summary final report provides only a very basic overview of the research program. At the most fundamental level, the research conducted under this program suggests that a large-scale corridor concept is challenging to conceive, in both theory and practice for mid- and northern Canada. For that reason, we recommend a segmented corridor approach focused on development initiatives which are already gaining public acceptance and that communities identify as key priorities, such as digital infrastructure. One early priority could be the digitization of highways and roadways to enhance safety while travelling and to digitally connect communities. As such, a corridor approach must reflect a holistic strategy addressing the existing shortcomings related to the infrastructure gap in mid- and northern Canada which contributes to problems around unreliable transportation pathways, digital connectivity, food insecurity, inadequate housing, and lack of healthcare and education services.