Summary

• Last spring in Manitoba marked the start of the second-worst wildfire season in Canadian history. Experts warn these types of fires are becoming more common with climate change.
• A Narwhal and Winnipeg Free Press analysis found $500 million in costs directly tied to the Manitoba wildfires, including evacuations, emergency costs, insured losses, healthcare costs and many more.
• The Manitoba government alone spent seven times its projected budget on emergency response — more than the operating budgets of two of its departments combined.

A little more than a year ago, during a time usually marked by lingering snowbanks and the first hints of spring, parts of Manitoba were engulfed in flames.

An early heat wave on the heels of several months of drought combined to produce ideal conditions for spring fires. 

Within days, the province was at the epicentre of what would become the second-worst wildfire season in Canadian history.

Between May and August, fires tore through 2.3 million hectares, decimated provincial parklands and forced more than 33,000 residents out of their homes. Two people died; at least one firefighter was severely injured.

In 2025, wildfires in Manitoba burned 2.3 million hectares, decimated provincial parklands and forced more than 33,000 residents out of their homes. Photo: David Lipnowski / The Canadian Press

The scale of the disaster was unprecedented — so were the costs.

An analysis by The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press found at least $500 million in expenses directly attributable to the wildfires — costs tied to emergency response, evacuations, damaged infrastructure, shuttered businesses, lost homes and much more. The true cost will never be known, as the impacts are far-reaching and far less tangible, and likely far, far higher.

But the tangible costs are many: wildfires scorched the provincial economy, burning through hundreds of millions in public funds, searing the bottom lines of several local businesses and taking a heavy toll on thousands of families’ finances. 

In the fiscal year including those wildfires, Manitoba spent $383 million on government emergency expenditures. Nearly all of that, $375 million, was attributed to wildfires, seven times more than what was budgeted.

To put that figure in perspective, the combined operating budgets of the Environment and Climate Change Department ($117 million) and the Department of Natural Resources ($147 million) totalled $264 million, meaning Manitoba spent 42 per cent more on emergency wildfire expenses last year than it did on the operating budgets for those two departments combined.

In a statement in response to a detailed list of questions, the government said a full picture of wildfire costs won’t be available until public accounts are released in September — after the next wildfire season has passed.

The statement described last year’s fires as “generational in nature,” but experts warn many of the same fire-prone conditions are still present. Fire weather is expected to be the norm in the future, as warmer temperatures dry out fuel sources and trigger more lightning storms, among other factors. 

The provincial budget’s risk outlook acknowledges the potential cost of that threat: “If similar conditions persist in 2026 — with climate change contributing to more frequent extreme weather events such as droughts — the province could face continued risks to employment, labour displacement, reductions in tourism and agricultural output and overall economic performance.”

Despite that, Manitoba’s $50-million emergency expenditure budget wasn’t changed for 2026. The government said it is “a sizable emergency expense contingency,” while also noting an increase in funding for wildfire preparedness, prevention and emergency management. 

The government has earmarked more than $4.5 million in new funding for additional seasonal firefighter positions and emergency management staff, upgraded weather and fire-mapping tools and aerial firefighting services.

Another year of devastating wildfires could further strain an economy navigating several stressors at once. Beyond the direct costs linked to firefighters, air tankers and evacuation support, natural disasters have profound indirect — though often unmeasurable — costs that ripple throughout the economy.

table of contents

• Wildfire protection budgets
• Out-of-province firefighters
• Largest evacuation in Manitoba history costs millions
• Damaged property, damaged infrastructure
• Business closures dampen economic activity
• Intangible impacts

Wildfire protection budgets

In 2025, the province spent about $70 million across four departments to manage emergency wildfire response, including fire suppression equipment, provincial firefighters and emergency management teams. 

That’s expected to increase this year as the province aims to hire another 19 emergency firefighters, four conservation workers and 15 emergency management personnel. 

However, the budget for wildfire suppression — just under $14 million — has been relatively unchanged since 2022, even as Canada experienced two of its worst-ever fire seasons in 2023 and 2025. 

Two years earlier, in 2020, the wildfire suppression budget was more than double what it is today, at just under $30 million.

Manitoba’s budget for wildfire suppression — just under $14 million — has been relatively unchanged since 2022, even as Canada experienced two of its worst-ever fire seasons in 2023 and 2025. Photo: David Lipnowski / The Canadian Press

As for staff, the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union, which represents members of the province’s wildfire service, released a report in December that noted 64 fire ranger positions and 25 per cent of wildfire division positions were vacant when the fire season began. 

“Our staffing levels are ’70s, ’80s levels — not current,” one staff member told the union. 

While the union has applauded this year’s five per cent increase to the conservation and wildfire service budget, it noted a full complement of staff with adequate training, equipment and compensation (Manitoba firefighters make the second-lowest hourly wage in the country) could help mitigate the growing risks associated with wildfires. 

“The 2025 fire season was not an outlier, but the new normal as the impacts of climate continue to wreak havoc on communities and natural areas,” the report said.

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Out-of-province firefighters

The severity of the fire season — combined with the depleted complement of firefighters — meant Manitoba needed significant out-of-province support to battle the summer blazes. 

Manitoba brought in more than 250 personnel, both from Parks Canada and provincial fire teams from Alberta, British Columbia, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. The province also hosted another 250 firefighters from the United States, 200 from Mexico, 40 from France and 65 from New Zealand and Australia. 

The province did not provide a breakdown of its payments to other jurisdictions.

Instead, The Narwhal and Free Press reviewed publicly disclosed provincial government contracts valued over $10,000 and labeled: “Emergency services related to forest fires.” The review found 20 contracts worth a combined $6.5 million inked with other government departments.

Manitoba needed significant out-of-province support to battle the summer blazes. Photo: Mike Deal / The Canadian Press

The Société de protection des forêts contre le feu, a non-profit fire protection agency based in Quebec, received about 40 per cent of those funds. The agency sent more than 150 firefighters from Quebec and France, as well as logistics support, through June and July. While Manitoba’s records show contracts totalling $2.8 million, the agency’s annual report indicates it billed Manitoba for more than $5.1 million in 2025. This suggests some out-of-province payments are not yet recorded in Manitoba’s contract records.

The province also paid $2.7 million to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, which “coordinates the sharing of firefighting resources” across Canada, and helped mobilize aircraft and international personnel to fight the Manitoba fires, according to a statement from the centre. Manitoba also recorded eight contracts worth just under $500,000 for “other firefighting equipment.”

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Largest evacuation in Manitoba history costs millions

According to Manitoba’s recently released interim review of the wildfire season, it was “one of the largest evacuation operations in Manitoba’s history.” 

Consider the numbers: 59 communities impacted, more than 33,000 residents evacuated, including 4,100 air evacuations by the Canadian Armed Forces and 2,300 people temporarily relocated outside the province.

Both the Canadian and American Red Cross were called on to support evacuations; many evacuees lived in congregate shelters in Winnipeg, Thompson, Winkler and Portage la Prairie after hotels became overwhelmed. 

These evacuations, some of which lasted several weeks, others months, took an unprecedented toll. Evacuees suffered mental health impacts owing to the fear, uncertainty and stress of being separated from family and their homes, many missed school and work, or were forced to close their businesses. First Nations evacuees, particularly those in remote, northern communities, reported additional strain as they were relocated to urban environments, isolated from familiar foods, community and culture. 

Not all of these impacts can be quantified, but will nonetheless have long-lasting effects on many Manitoba communities.

The Manitoba government said last year’s wildfire emergency included “one of the largest evacuation operations in Manitoba’s history.” Fifty-nine communities were impacted and more than 33,000 residents were evacuated, including 4,100 air evacuations by the Canadian Armed Forces and 2,300 people temporarily relocated outside the province. Photo: David Lipnowski / The Canadian Press

The financial responsibility for evacuee support is spread across federal, provincial and local governments, with Indigenous Services Canada responsible for evacuations affecting First Nations, and the federal government providing disaster financial assistance to affected municipalities. According to the interim review, nine disaster financial assistance payments have been made thus far, totalling $3.4 million.

While the province did not specify how much of the $375-million emergency expenditures were earmarked for evacuees, government contracts show Manitoba spent upwards of $60 million on accommodations, food, transportation and other evacuation support. 

Most of that money — $53 million — was paid to the Canadian Red Cross, which helped lead evacuations. These payments do not include the Red Cross’s work with Manitoba First Nations, which is paid for by Indigenous Services Canada. 

Contracts show approximately $4 million in space rental and cleaning fees, including a $1.7 million contract with Canad Inns, and 40 other contracts with hotels, inns and resort centres across Manitoba and western Ontario, where some evacuees were sheltered. 

Catering, groceries and other food bills amounted to $813,000, while the bill for planes, cars, fuel and other transportation was more than $3 million. 

Evacuations are particularly challenging for residents living in hospitals and personal care homes, or receiving regular medical care like dialysis appointments. According to Shared Health, Manitoba’s provincial health authority, the Flin Flon hospital was evacuated in May, as were personal care homes in Flin Flon, Lynn Lake and Thompson.

“The evacuation in the north was the biggest the province has seen,” Shared Health wrote in a May 2025 press release. 

Those patients were transported either by commercial, chartered or, in some cases, individual medivac flights, Jessica Davis, who served as the provincial air ambulance manager for Shared Health through the 2025 wildfire season, said in an interview. 

MedEvac flights cost between $10,000 and $20,000 each direction, she said, while commercial medical flights come with costs between $50,000 and $60,000. 

Shared Health has not yet compiled the final figures, but estimates more than 100 patients were evacuated from hospitals and personal care homes in northern communities. While some of the evacuation costs were shared with the federal government, Kristyn Ball, director of patient flow, noted at least one health-care facility sustained “significant damage,” and many others were costly to shut down and start up again during the evacuations. Davis emphasized the overtime accrued by health-care staff added to the evacuation costs.

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Damaged property, damaged infrastructure

Governments typically absorb the bulk of natural disaster costs, spreading the economic impacts across multi-billion-dollar budgets. For homeowners in the fire’s path, the impacts are acute.

According to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, insurers handled several thousand claims related to the Manitoba wildfires last year, the majority of which came from homeowners. 

In the wake of a natural disaster, Canada’s insurance companies navigate an influx of claims, ranging from “the worst, which is when people have lost everything,” to claims for evacuation-related expenses like hotel rooms and rental cars, Aaron Sutherland, the bureau’s Pacific and Western region vice-president, said in an interview. 

When the sum of insurance claims reaches $30 million, the industry conducts surveys to estimate the total recovery costs. The fires in the Flin Flon and Lac du Bonnet regions both met those thresholds, Sutherland said. 

Estimates compiled in September pegged insured damages from the Flin Flon and Lac du Bonnet fires at $250 million and $60 million respectively. They’re expected to be updated as the one-year mark approaches.

While these estimates help form a picture of the individual costs to rebuild after a fire, they’re only part of the picture. About 90 per cent of Canadians have some form of property insurance; those without may incur steep losses that are neither recoverable or tracked. 

“There’s a real human toll to these events as well,” Sutherland added. “If you’re in the unfortunate situation where you have lost everything, that has a massive impact on your life. Even if you’ve got your insurer there to help you begin to put those pieces back together, you’re looking at belongings, mementos, pictures, things like that, that you may never get back, and it’s absolutely devastating.”

Estimates compiled in September pegged insured damages from the Flin Flon and Lac du Bonnet fires at $250 million and $60 million respectively. That’s just the beginning of the losses to homes and property. Photos: Mikaela MacKenzie / Winnipeg Free Press

Even for those whose personal property is unscathed, damage to wider infrastructure can have knock-on effects.

Last year’s fires damaged more than 1,200 Manitoba Hydro poles, interrupting electrical service in several communities. Five generating stations were temporarily shut down or evacuated — the first time the utility has ever evacuated its power infrastructure — leading to about 70 megawatts of lost generating capacity. 

In addition to power interruptions, “telecommunications disruptions affected multiple communities, boil-water advisories were issued and postal and other essential services were suspended in several areas,” the review notes. 

According to a statement from the Crown utility, 1,500 customers were affected by power outages, “including some communities where the outages lasted for weeks or months.”

Manitoba Hydro estimates the wildfires cost the utility approximately $50 million between infrastructure repairs, emergency response crew wages and service interruptions.

It was “without doubt the most impactful wildfire season in Manitoba Hydro’s history, in terms of the number of assets impacted, employees involved in wildfire response, and communities impacted by power outages,” Peter Chura, Hydro’s media relations officer said.

Insured damages from weather-related disasters totalled $14 billion nationwide between 2006 and 2015. In the decade since, that total has more than doubled to $37 billion, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada.Photo: Mikaela MacKenzie / Winnipeg Free Press

Meanwhile, the increasing frequency of wildfires, severe floods and other natural disasters is causing concern for the insurance industry. In time, it could lead to increased premiums as insurers look to balance growing recovery costs.

“Insurers, for a long time, have been a bit of a canary in the coal mine,” Sutherland said. 

“We are trending in the wrong direction in terms of the cost of these types of events. It’s a clear indication of the need for us, as a society, to improve our resilience.”

Insured damages from weather-related disasters totalled $14 billion nationwide between 2006 and 2015. In the decade since, that total has more than doubled to $37 billion, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada. The average number of claims has doubled, too. 

“Insurance price is risk; that risk is growing. If we want to see a more affordable insurance marketplace, we have to take action to begin to reduce the risk facing communities, facing our properties and facing our families,” Sutherland said.

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Business closures dampen economic activity

In 2025, Natural Resources Canada released a research paper outlining a method to estimate the direct and indirect costs of extreme wildfires, acknowledging there are “numerous gaps” in the current understanding of socioeconomic impacts from wildfires.

The study notes it can take several months to fully understand how wildfires have impacted regional economies as business disruptions, lost opportunity costs and the impacts of ecosystem loss ripple through industries. 

Natural resource sectors including mining and forestry, as well as local tourism economies, tend to be most directly impacted by wildfires. For communities in the north, these industries are often the backbone of the local economy.

Last June, Statistics Canada estimated the potential economic disruption from the 2025 wildfires, and found 2.4 per cent of Manitoba’s GDP, including one quarter of the northern region’s economy, was at risk of fire-related disruption — the largest share of any province.

The fires that tore through the eastern portion of the province forced several popular provincial parks to remain closed throughout the busiest season. 

While it’s still too early to pinpoint the exact impact the 2025 wildfires had on visitation and revenue (numbers will be available in August), Travel Manitoba conducted an internal survey of tourism operators last summer to gauge the scope of the impacts, chief operating officer Angela Cassie said in an interview. 

A little more than half of tourism operators — from lodges and outfitters to campgrounds, festivals and outdoor recreation services, to restaurants and transportation — reported cancellations, Cassie said. 

Forty per cent reported lost revenue due to decreased visitation and 18 per cent had to close their businesses entirely for mandatory evacuations, she added.

Impacted businesses reported average revenue losses of about $175,000. 

“The earnings from that summer season often sustains their businesses all year,” Cassie said. “A lot of them are looking at the summer of 2025 as a lost summer.” 

For some businesses, the impacts will extend far beyond one season of depleted revenues. Five per cent reported damaged or lost property as a result of the fires, while others lost habitat, which could impact future bookings. 

One in 10 tourism operators reported mental-health challenges in response to the crisis, Cassie said. 

The high-profile nature of last year’s wildfires had an impact too. As Manitoba declared successive province-wide states of emergency, countries in Europe, for example, warned travellers of the risks of visiting Manitoba. As the province worked to shelter tens of thousands of evacuees, Premier Wab Kinew asked tourists to avoid booking hotel rooms. 

“There’s the physical loss because of cancellations or just people not booking last year but then are you losing people who are maybe now choosing other locations for the summer and not choosing Manitoba?” Cassie said.

Travel Manitoba is on a mission to “earn that business back” with a $1.35-million marketing campaign. The industry group has earmarked an additional $1.35 million for a wildfire assistance program that will cover up to 90 per cent of the cost of fire prevention equipment (such as sprinklers, hoses and water pumps) and training for tourism businesses. 

“This year will be really important for a lot of [businesses]. They’ve come through this winter extremely lean, so this summer is going to be extremely important,” Cassie said. 

The province’s mining industry was impacted, too, with at least four companies reporting shutdowns, evacuations or delays related to the wildfires. 

The Tanco lithium mine in eastern Manitoba, owned by Chinese company Sinomine, was evacuated in early May. Hudbay’s Snow Lake operation was shut down for seven weeks in July and August, incurring more than US$4 million in costs, according to the company’s financial reporting. Grid Metals’ Makwa facility was shuttered for several months, from early May until late July, and was only able to complete one day of field work in the second quarter.

Alamos Gold, near Lynn Lake, was investigated in connection with a major fire in the region, after a burn pile reignited at the MacLellan mine site. 

The company was forced to evacuate, delaying the ramp up of construction on a new mine and contributing to a 48 per cent increase in capital funding for the project, according to the company’s latest quarterly report.

Mining companies also contributed to evacuation and firefighting efforts in the communities where staff live and work, and donated a combined $1.25 million to the Red Cross relief effort.

While impacts to Manitoba’s forestry industry are not yet tabulated, analysis of fire boundaries shows 1.2 million hectares of the province’s logging licence areas burned — about 10 per cent of Manitoba’s regularly harvested forests.

According to the province’s economic development council, “wildfires lead to reduced supply, processing shutdowns and volatile price swings” for the forestry industry. The 2023 wildfires prompted a 20 per cent dip in June and July lumber production compared to the previous five-year average, according to a report from the Canadian Climate Institute.

“Whole regions now have nothing but young trees. There’s nothing to harvest,” B.C.-based wildfire researcher Bob Gray said last October.

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Intangible impacts: health, carbon emissions will add to future costs

The costs compiled here represent only a portion of the long-term economic impacts wildfires will have on Manitoba’s economy. It will take several months for government agencies and private companies to finish taking stock of the damage; some losses will never show up in financial records or industry reports.

For example, communities are left to clean up debris, remediate damaged sites and conduct inspections; these costs can be difficult to tabulate, according to the federal government’s report on the economic impacts of wildfires. 

Other indirect impacts are unlikely to be formally tied to the 2025 fires, making them challenging to capture when calculating the costs of a natural disaster.

Not all the costs of wildfires are reflected in price tags. The trauma of fires, evacuations and destruction will also have far-reaching mental health impacts for impacted communities and the front-line workers responding to the crisis. Photo: Mikaela MacKenzie / Winnipeg Free Press

The Manitoba wildfires released a total 44 megatonnes of cumulative carbon emissions by mid-summer — a provincial record — according to data from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, part of the European Union’s environmental monitoring programme. That’s equivalent to two years of Manitoba’s annual, human-caused emissions. 

“As a result, smoke plumes repeatedly blanketed large parts of Canada and North America, and on several occasions travelled across the Atlantic, reaching western, central and eastern Europe,” the Copernicus report notes.

Wildfire smoke increases risk of respiratory and cardiovascular illness, putting long-term strain on health-care systems.

A Health Canada study published in 2024 estimates that between 2013 and 2018, air pollution from wildfire smoke contributed to 240 deaths from short-term exposure and 2,500 from long-term exposure, and generated annual health-care costs between $4.7 and $20 billion.

There were 18 days between May and October last year where Winnipeg’s daily average concentration of fine particulate matter — one way to measure wildfire pollutants — exceeded federal limits of 27 micrograms per cubic metre. The average concentration peaked at 57 micrograms per cubic metre in early June.

Only nine days exceeded federal limits in Winnipeg amid Canada’s worst-ever wildfires in 2023.

The trauma of fires, evacuations and destruction will also have far-reaching mental health impacts for impacted communities and the front-line workers responding to the crisis. 

“The mental-health support part of the [health-care] system is one that’s required long after the fire is out,” Jeff Martin, director of emergency and continuity management for Shared Health, said in an interview. 

With its interim review, Manitoba has started to strengthen its wildfire preparedness and response systems across several government departments. In addition to financial investments to boost emergency staffing and firefighting resources, the province plans to improve evacuee support with more culturally-responsive services, smoother registration systems, more robust financial support and more assistance geared at vulnerable populations. It plans to streamline its overall emergency funding processes, update its wildfire response guidelines and improve coordination and communication between agencies and jurisdictions. 

“We were as prepared as we could possibly have been for a season like we had,” Lisa Naylor, the minister responsible for the Emergency Management Organization, said at a news conference this week for the release of the interim report.

“We hope we won’t see a season like that this year and, at the same time, we’re going to be even more prepared.”

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Julia-Simone Rutgers is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.

Updated Friday, April 24, 2026, at 9:16 CT: This article has been updated to correct how much more the Manitoba government spent on emergency wildfire expenses compared to the total operating budgets of two of its departments. It was 42 per cent more, not 35, as previously stated.

Updated Friday, April 24, 2026, at 10:50 CT: This article has also been updated to correct an earlier statement from the Insurance Bureau of Canada about the total of insured damages from weather-related disasters in recent decades. The bureau clarified the figures were cumulative, not annual, as they had previously stated.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Summary

• Manitoba released its latest budget last week.
• Conservation groups released a joint statement following the budget’s release saying it does not adequately address environmental issues.
• The Manitoba government points to a new fare-free transit program for youth and an 11 per cent funding increase for the Environment Department, though advocates point out the funds are mostly for existing initiatives.

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The Manitoba government has made big promises to protect and prioritize the environment as it works to boost economic development and become a “have province.” But climate groups say the latest provincial budget, released Wednesday, has failed to deliver.

A coalition of environmental organizations including the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), Manitoba Eco-Network and Climate Action Team Manitoba gave the province “a near failing grade for its lack of meaningful investment in climate action and environmental protection,” according to a Friday release.

“Manitoba’s 2026 budget and the past two budgets before it have been extremely disappointing for climate and nature,” Ron Thiessen, executive director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society’s Manitoba chapter, said in an interview.

“The accelerating rate of extreme wildfires that have been choking our airways show we can’t wait to reduce emissions and protect the lands that remove carbon from the air. We feel quite strongly that without very strong provincial investment in climate and environment, our well-being suffers and health-care costs will continue to rise.”

In late January, the organizations were among more than two dozen local climate, business and labour groups that presented a letter to the government calling for increased investment in energy efficiency initiatives, public and active transportation and land and water protection in this year’s budget.

While Manitoba’s Environment and Climate Change Department saw an 11 per cent funding increase, the funds are predominantly earmarked for existing initiatives, including $10 million in ongoing funding for Efficiency Manitoba’s home energy retrofit program and extending the electric vehicle rebate, which has helped more than 5,000 Manitobans switch to electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles since July 2024.

It also includes a pledge to work with the City of Winnipeg and other municipalities to make transit free for children and youth, acknowledging “public transit is a key component in our path to net zero.”

Environment and Climate Change Minister Mike Moyes said the fare-free program will cost approximately $10 million and discussions are currently underway with Manitoba municipalities including Flin Flon, Selkirk, Brandon and Winnipeg about its implementation.

“It’s something I’m hearing lots about in the community and that lots of parents are excited about, both in terms of saving money for bus passes and bus tickets, but it’s also building out the next generation of bus riders,” Moyes said in an interview.

On conservation, the budget reiterated Manitoba’s $250,000 contribution to study the feasibility of a marine conservation area in Hudson Bay as part of the Port of Churchill expansion. The budget also included a modest increase to the parks and trails budget, including $1 million to “fully staff our parks,” capital funds for upgrades at five provincial parks and disaster relief funding to rebuild wildfire-damaged campgrounds at Nopiming Provincial Park.

Environmental organizations say these investments “fall short across the board.”

“The choice to double down on balancing the budget while further cutting taxes is pushing greater climate costs and devastation onto the next generation, while missing myriad opportunities to grow low-carbon industries and jobs,” Laura Cameron, director of Climate Action Team Manitoba, said in Friday’s release.

“A climate plan without investment is simply a wish list.”

Thiessen said he applauds the province’s conservation efforts and its commitment to 30-by-30 targets — targets adopted at the 2022 United Nations Convention on Biodiversity to conserve 30 per cent of lands and waters by 2030. But a “revolutionary investment” is needed to meet that ambitious goal, Thiessen said, including a funded plan to support Indigenous communities identifying and planning new protected areas, and support for new parks and campgrounds within a 200-kilometre radius of Winnipeg.

“We’re seeing serious and accelerated new investments in development, which is much needed, however, we’re not seeing the investments in climate and conservation to balance those outcomes,” Thiessen said.

While the report card called the free youth transit program “a positive step, and a great affordability measure,” climate action groups and transit unions have been calling for the province to increase operational funding for Winnipeg Transit, and ultimately restore the 50-50 funding partnership with the municipality.

“Public transit is one of the most effective tools we have to reduce emissions and improve affordability, yet the government continues to underinvest in the services Manitobans rely on every day,” Cameron said in the release.

Asked to respond to the failing grade from environmental groups, Moyes said the province is “incredibly proud” of its climate record thus far.

“We recognize that we’ve achieved a lot, but that there’s more to do,” he said.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Table of contents

• Step 1: Begin in a time of crisis
• Step 2: Get to know the region’s permafrost — and assume ‘the ground is going to move’
• Step 3: Prepare to build a pipeline above-ground — or chill the oil
• Step 4: Expect cost overruns, especially as the climate changes
• Step 5: Monitor in perpetuity. Adapt to a warming climate

“This is no picnic,” warned a somewhat cryptic job poster on the walls of an Edmonton pipeline construction firm in summer 1942.

“Men hired for this job will be required to work and live under the most extreme conditions imaginable. … Men will have to fight swamps, rivers, ice and cold. Mosquitos, flies and gnats will not only be annoying but will cause bodily harm. If you are not prepared to work under these and similar conditions — do not apply.”

The job was a secretive government project in the wilderness of the Canadian North. In less than two years, a team of 30,000 would enlist to lay a four-inch-wide steel pipe from a recently discovered oilfield near Norman Wells, N.W.T., to Whitehorse, Yukon.

The “stupendous” and “unusual” construction project, as it would be called in the years after its completion, was the first attempt to build a pipeline in the North American Arctic. 

It would ultimately lay the foundation for many decades of oil exploration in the North.

Today, a fragmented trade relationship with the United States and an oil crisis driven by a new conflict in the Middle East have bolstered Canadian politicians’ calls for new oil and gas infrastructure.

As investors hesitate to back the east-west pipeline proposals that face opposition from Indigenous communities and environmental advocates, a decades-old idea to build a link to the Port of Churchill on the shores of Hudson Bay has picked up steam.

While not all of northern Manitoba is as ice-laden as the Northwest Territories or Alaska, any pipeline from Alberta’s oilfields to Manitoba’s northern coast would need to cross the Canadian Shield, the tundra and permafrost. These ecosystems are changing rapidly as the planet warms; more than half of existing infrastructure in the Arctic is projected to incur damages by mid-century as a result of climate change. 

If Manitoba, the federal government and industry players are serious in their pursuit of pumping oil and gas through the Port of Churchill, they will need to build on the legacies — and lessons — of northern pipelines that have come before.

Step 1: Begin in a time of crisis

The first time a pipeline was strung across the hard, icy wilderness of the North American Arctic, the world was at war. 

It was the spring of 1942, just months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the U.S. War Department (as it was called then, too) was concerned its Arctic bases were exposed to attacks by Japanese forces. 

Behind closed doors, the U.S. government devised a plan to shore up its Arctic security with two daring infrastructure projects: a highway slicing through the ice from Dawson Creek, B.C., to Delta Junction, Alaska, and a pipeline feeding crude from the untapped Norman Wells oilfield in the Northwest Territories across the Mackenzie Mountains and on to a refinery in Whitehorse.

This secret wartime pipeline, built by the Imperial Oil Company, would be called Canol — short for Canadian oil. 

“At the time Canol was begun, our situation was not a happy one. … The sea lanes to Alaska might be blocked, and with a shortage of freighters and tankers it was imperative that an overland route to Alaska be opened up and given an assured fuel supply,” Richard Finnie, a historian and filmmaker who produced a documentary about the pipeline, said in a 1947 article in the Canadian Geographical Journal.

“All that was done, and with amazing speed.” 

It took just 22 months to lay the 1,000-kilometre pipeline; it would take just nine months to abandon it. By 1947 the war was over and the oil link was no longer needed. Canol was dismantled, its steel repurposed. 

But its short-lived presence made a permanent mark on the North.

Before Canol, Finnie said, there were no airports, no roads longer than 15 kilometres, and certainly no oil infrastructure. The project proved to governments, business and engineers that the harsh northern terrain, with its unyielding granite and ice, could be tamped down with concrete and steel. 

In the decades since, two more major pipelines have been built in the northern reaches of the continent: Enbridge’s Line 21, from Norman Wells to northwest Alberta, and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System that cuts the length of the northernmost American state.

The Trans-Alaska pipeline, a four-foot-wide, 1,200-kilometre-long pipe that zigzags through Alaska’s mountain valleys from an oilfield at Prudhoe Bay to a marine terminal at Valdez, was also built in just two years. It had previously been stalled for several years due to legal and environmental challenges, but was ultimately approved when the 1973 Arab-Israeli war thrust America into an oil crisis.

The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System originates at a pump station on the state’s north coast, pictured here. It pumps oil to a marine port on the state’s south coast more than 1,000 kilometres away. Photo: Jenny Kane / The Associated Press

Now, a new oil crisis is renewing old interests.

Amid what the International Energy Agency called “the largest supply disruption in history,” Canada has agreed to contribute 23 million barrels to global emergency oil supply. Despite being the world’s fifth-largest producer of both crude oil and natural gas, pundits and politicians argue a lack of pipelines is stymying the country’s export capacity.

“We must build new pipelines west, east, north and south — without delay and without hesitation — to supply Asian, European and American markets with safe, reliable and responsibly produced energy products,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith wrote in an op-ed for the Financial Post this month. 

Manitoba’s Port of Churchill is now being heralded as a potential trade hub allowing the country’s resources more rapid access to eastern markets. Momentum is building in support of an energy corridor that could carry oil, natural gas, potash or hydrogen from the Prairies to Hudson Bay. 

In January, Premier Wab Kinew announced multiple energy companies are interested in backing the proposal, while a November agreement with the federal government pledges to simplify regulatory approvals for a port expansion.

In the 2026 budget, the NDP announced a further $10 million to “keep building the momentum on this project and attract even more private sector interest in a potential energy corridor.”

Under these political conditions — and with significant investments from either the private or public sector — pipelines can be built quickly. 

“There’s just an idea that we don’t do enough in the Arctic,” Heather Exner-Pirot, director of energy, natural resources and environment at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, said in a late February interview. Canadians periodically worry the country does not have enough presence in the Arctic, or is under-utilizing its resources, she added. 

Those fears are “based on a very superficial understanding” of the Arctic, she said. But coupled with a desire to diversify exports and opposition to an east-west pipeline through B.C. to the Pacific Ocean, they have made the prospect of a new northern pipeline more enticing.

But in reality, she said, building in the North — over Manitoba’s muskeg and permafrost — is an expensive and dangerous logistical challenge.

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Step 2: Get to know the region’s permafrost — and assume ‘the ground is going to move’

When Canol was first proposed, scientists knew so little about building infrastructure in the Arctic, they had yet to come up with a term for its characteristic, perennially frozen ground. It was Stanford University professor Siemon Muller who first coined the term permafrost after being sent to investigate where the Alaska Highway and Canol pipeline would be built.

In simplest terms, permafrost is a term for ground that remains frozen year-round, though it is formally defined as “earth materials that remain below 0 C for two or more consecutive years.”

In northern Canada, the top layer of soil, called the active layer, typically thaws briefly in the summer, but the permafrost below remains at a relatively stable freezing temperature. Photo: Weronika Murray / Pingo Canadian Landmark / The Narwhal

Permafrost is typically described as either continuous (appearing over more than 80 per cent of the ground), discontinuous (covering between 30 and 80 per cent) or sporadic (less than 30 per cent). Almost half of Canada’s land area is underlain with permafrost, predominantly across the Territories. 

While the top layer of soil, called the active layer, thaws briefly in the summer, the permafrost below remains at a relatively stable freezing temperature. Gravelly, rocky soil is often considered “ice-poor,” and is able to maintain its stability even when the ice thaws. Finer soil tends to create “ice-rich” permafrost, where frozen moisture is necessary to the structural integrity of the surface. 

Understanding these nuances is a prerequisite to designing any pipeline infrastructure in the North, University of Alaska Fairbanks geophysicist Vladimir Romanovsky said in an interview. 

“If it’s present, the second very important question is: how much ice is in that permafrost?”

Romanovsky has been working with permafrost since the mid-’70s — right around the time the Trans-Alaska pipeline was built. Understanding of permafrost was still limited then, but would grow as engineers planned a route across the Arctic. 

In January 1969, representatives from some of North America’s largest oil and gas producers and mining operations met at the University of Calgary for the third Canadian conference on permafrost, where a session was dedicated to discussing the challenges of building pipelines over the frozen ground. 

By this point, scientists understood the permafrost “is in a very delicate state of thermal equilibrium with its environment, and any disturbance will cause thawing and degradation,” T. A. Harwood, chairman of the National Research Council’s permafrost subcommittee, said in a presentation. This is further complicated by the discontinuous nature of much of Canada’s permafrost layer, he added, which makes the ice “patchy and unpredictable.” 

Understanding the ice content helps engineers assess how the permafrost will change under the temperature stresses created by a pipeline, Romanovsky said. Oil pipelines are usually transporting a heated product, while gas pipelines are often chilled. 

“Both of them impact the environment in terms of permafrost. The heated oil pipeline will thaw permafrost if it’s placed into the ground; the chilled gas may actually create new permafrost,” he said.

Approximately half of Canada is underlain by permafrost, though its characteristics (such as ice thickness and temperature) vary widely across the country. Source: Natural Resources Canada. Map: Julia-Simone Rutgers / Winnipeg Free Press and The Narwhal

When permafrost thaws, a layer of water forms under the ice, which can cause the ground to shift — a phenomenon called subsidence. The problem is exacerbated on slopes, where the soil can become oversaturated and form landslides. Newly frozen areas can swell or heave, posing infrastructure risks. 

“Permafrost, generally, is not just frozen dirt. It’s a highly sensitive, temperature-dependent foundation,” Alireza Bayat, professor of civil engineering and director of the Canadian Underground Infrastructure Innovation Centre at the University of Alberta, said in an interview.

As the active layer thaws and freezes, the changing grounds can cause pipes to either sink into the soil or be pushed up out of the ground, Bayat said.

“Essentially you’re assuming the ground is going to move. How can we build or design a pipe that’s able to handle that?”

To make a pipeline work in the discontinuous permafrost seen in northern Manitoba, Romanovsky said scientists and engineers will need to consider the extent of the ice layer and calculate the degree of cooling needed to keep the frost stable through the pipeline’s lifespan. Extra margin should be built in to account for climate change, he said, which is rapidly warming the Arctic.

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Step 3: Prepare to build a pipeline above-ground — or chill the oil

After finding a major oilfield at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in the 1960s, oil and gas executives were consumed with “the problem of deciding on the best means of transporting this oil to market.” 

In his presentation, Harwood suggested a couple possible routes: either straight across the permafrost to Alaska’s south shore, or through the Mackenzie River Valley. The latter seemed the more sensible option to Harwood, given the pipe could either link up with existing infrastructure in Alberta or be carried on to the Port of Churchill — which was being used for seasonal grain shipments at the time — where “it appears reasonably certain that it would be possible to ship oil … to any continental port throughout the year.”

Plans to expand northern Manitoba‘s historic Port of Churchill would mean creating an important channel between the Arctic and the rest of Canada. It could also potentially include a new pipeline from Alberta. Photo: Dylan Robertson / Winnipeg Free Press

The decision would ultimately be made to run the pipeline across Alaska, allowing easier access to western markets and fewer regulatory challenges. 

But the question of how to lay a pipeline carrying either hot, liquid oil or pressurized, cold gas was still unanswered. 

At that point “no one [had] actually constructed a pipeline in the North and operated it,” Harwood said.

He proposed three solutions: building a road with a large crown — effectively a peak in the centre — along which a pipeline could be nestled in insulating materials, laying the pipe in a trench dug into the active layer of the permafrost or suspending the pipeline above ground. 

The original design for the Trans-Alaska pipeline was drawn up by a Texas company that planned to use the same methods it had for its southern lines, Romanovsky said: “Dig a trench, put the pipe in, cover it and everything will be good.” 

“That would be a disaster if that would have happened,” he said.

The design was reviewed by Arthur Lachenbruch, a permafrost scientist at the United States Geological Survey, who determined the proposal to bury a four-foot-wide pipe the length of the state would likely thaw the surrounding permafrost.

“Where the ice content of permafrost is not high, and other conditions are favorable, thawing by the buried pipe might cause no special problems. Under adverse local conditions, however, this thawing could have significant effects on the environment, and possibly upon the security of the pipeline,” Lachenbruch wrote in a 1970 report.

Lachenbruch’s report changed everything, Romanovsky said. 

The pipeline was already facing pushback in the courts from both environmental organizations and Indigenous Alaskans. It was the first major test of the newly passed National Environmental Policy Act, and led to lengthy environmental impact assessment hearings, where critics used Lachenbruch’s report to support their case.

Construction stalled while the pipeline owner, now called the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, was forced back to the drawing board. 

Instead of burying the line, engineers decided to suspend more than half of the 1,200-kilometre link on H-shaped support beams, a novel construction method for the time.

The 78,000 beams were each fitted with an innovative technology, called thermosyphons, designed to regulate the temperature of the permafrost.

“It’s a very smart engineering design,” Romanovsky said. 

The thermosyphons (also called thermopiles) don’t require any energy. Instead, the space-age technology consists of sealed tubes inserted several metres into the permafrost that contain a small amount of pressurized gas.

In the summer months, when the permafrost is colder than the air, the thermosyphons don’t have much work to do. But in the winter, when the temperature below ground is warmer than the atmospheric temperatures, the gas condensates into a liquid and drips to the bottom of the tube. Below ground, the liquid absorbs heat from the surrounding ice and evaporates, drawing the heat up and out to the surrounding air. 

“This convection goes on all winter long, taking heat from the ground, bringing it to the atmosphere and releasing it,” Romanovsky said.

There are currently two major oil and gas pipelines operating in the North. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System transports oil above ground for much of its route. Enbridge’s Line 21 is buried underground, and must cool the oil that flows through it to ensure its operations don’t contribute to permafrost thaw. Source: Global Energy Monitor, Canada Energy Regulator. Map: Julia-Simone Rutgers / Winnipeg Free Press and The Narwhal

Years after the Trans-Alaska pipeline came online, Canadian oil companies returned to the idea of laying a pipe through the Mackenzie Valley, this time connecting the oilfield at Norman Wells, N.W.T., to existing infrastructure in Zama, Alta. 

Unlike the Trans-Alaska line, Enbridge’s 869-kilometre Line 21, which came online in 1985, is the first Canadian Arctic pipeline to be buried in the permafrost.

To mitigate the risk of subsidence, the Norman Wells pipeline runs cold. The oil is chilled before entering the line to mirror the average ground temperature throughout the year, averaging between 0 C and -1 C. (Oil in the Trans-Alaska line is kept between 38 C and 63 C). 

Because clearing the ground for a pipeline right-of-way removes some of the natural insulation on the permafrost, several thaw-sensitive slopes along the route were insulated with woodchips to prevent melting. Monitoring technology was installed in strategic locations to measure ground temperature, check for pipe movement and estimate thaw depths. 

The pipeline has not been without incident. 

1,500 barrels of oil spilled after the pipe failed in 2011. Two years later, the federal pipeline regulator found 77 buried lines in the region were at risk of failure; the town of Norman Wells ranked as the community with the highest number of federally regulated pipeline incidents in 2013. In 2016, the pipe was shut down for nearly two years due to risks posed by a shifting permafrost slope.

Imperial Oil plans to “wind down” operations at the Norman Wells oilfield this fall, citing declining production.

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Step 4: Expect cost overruns, especially as the climate changes

Regardless of whether the pipe is to be built above or below ground, designing and constructing infrastructure able to withstand shifting permafrost is, above all, “very expensive,” Romanovsky says. 

At the earliest stages, a feasibility study estimated the Trans-Alaska pipeline would cost between US$863 million and $1.05 billion, depending on its capacity. By 1975, after re-working the design to factor in the permafrost, the budget was $6.4 billion. 

In the end, it cost more than US$8 billion —10 times the original estimate. 

Similarly, Canol came with an initial estimate of $500 million (in 2025 CAD) but in the end cost $3.2 billion. After the war, American cabinet members criticized the project as “useless and a waste of public funds.” 

These ballooning costs are often attributed to the limited permafrost expertise during initial designs; they do not account for the additional costs of maintenance and repair.

Bayat, at the University of Alberta, said Arctic pipelines require specialized materials, design characteristics and construction methods to withstand the forces caused by moving permafrost while mitigating the pipe’s risk to the environment — all of which can be costly.

Pipeline projects are prone to cost overruns. The cost of building the Coastal GasLink pipeline, seen here cutting through northern British Columbia, ballooned from initial estimates of $6.2 billion to a final price of $14.5 billion. Experts say building a pipeline on permafrost would present unique challenges and cost risks. Photo: Matt Simmons / The Narwhal

The remote location can also add to the cost, as it leaves operators reliant on winter roads and other temporary infrastructure when building and maintaining the pipe.

“You will spend some money to keep it in good shape,” Romanovsky, at the University of Alaska, said of Arctic pipelines.  

For example, the company tries to survey the pipeline by helicopter every day, weather permitting.

When the Alaska project was being designed in the mid-’70s, Romƒanovsky said, engineers and geophysicists were concerned about how the pipeline could impact the permafrost, but few were aware of the long-term risks a warming climate could pose to the pipe itself.

In 2020, several supports holding the pipeline aloft began to bend as the permafrost slope they were attached to began to thaw and shift, threatening the integrity of the pipe and forcing the ownership group to replace the beams and refreeze the slope. The same year, flood damage cost the operators US$10 million to repair the pipeline, while preventative maintenance to safeguard sections against further flooding was expected to cost a further $10-15 million.

These expenses are expected to climb as warming accelerates permafrost thaw. 

A scientific review of research from the last 20 years estimates as much as 50 per cent of Arctic infrastructure — including the Trans-Alaska pipeline, and some Canadian highways — are at high risk of damage by 2050. Maintenance costs, the review estimates, could increase by more than $15 billion in that time, while unavoidable damages could cost upwards of $21 billion.

Manitoba has already felt the impacts of shifting permafrost on infrastructure. 

The Hudson Bay Railway, which runs more than 800 kilometres between The Pas and Churchill, was among the first major transportation projects built over Canadian permafrost. Since its construction in the late 1920s, it has required regular maintenance as the weight and heat of train traffic thaws the ice-rich permafrost over which it was built. The railway was out of service for 18 months after being washed out by floods in 2017.

Federal and provincial governments have spent upwards of $500 million to purchase, repair, maintain and upgrade the railway since 2018.

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Step 5: Monitor in perpetuity. Adapt to a warming climate

As part of the environmental agreement that greenlit the Norman Wells pipeline, Enbridge and the Canadian government collaborate on research and monitoring, which provides long-term data about the impact of pipeline infrastructure on the permafrost.

That data is among the longest permafrost monitoring records in the country. The long view of the ice helps form a picture of how permafrost is changing alongside the global climate — and trends show the ice is warming quickly, Romanovsky said.

“In places where the permafrost was warmer, it’s already started to thaw from the top down,” he said. “In the future, with further warming, it will be happening in more and more regions, and be happening faster and faster.”

A 2024 report from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme found permafrost has warmed by two to three degrees since the 1970s, as ground temperatures reach record highs. The thawing has substantial impacts on the landscape, causing erosion, slumping and pooling of water. That melting permafrost in turn releases trapped carbon dioxide, further fuelling the warming effect.

In Canada’s North, landscapes such as caribou habitat found in Yukon’s Tombstone Territorial Park, seen here, are increasingly at risk of dramatic change as permafrost melts. As permafrost melts, landscapes become more unpredictable. Photo: Jimmy Thomson / The Narwhal

The Arctic Research Consortium of the United States warns the standard 30-year climate data engineers typically use when planning infrastructure projects has become “insufficient,” as climate change speeds up. 

“In the past, pipe design was kind of static … they were based on the fact we know how the weather is or how the ground is,” Bayat said. “Those assumptions are now more dynamic and they are changing with the climate.”

These warming trends could render existing mitigation technologies like thermosyphons ineffective, Romanovsky added.

During an engineering conference in Portugal in 2008, Edmonton-based Duane DeGeer presented on the unique considerations for Arctic pipelines, reporting the success of both the Norman Wells pipeline and the buried segments of the Trans-Alaska line had “prompted pipeline designers to consider burying Arctic pipelines wherever possible.” 

To mitigate heaving and sinking, the report referred to research on thicker, stronger, better insulated pipes, as well as controlling the temperature of materials inside, varying burial depth and soil cover and, above all, conducting long-term monitoring of soil temperatures and pipeline integrity. 

According to Bayat, more resilient materials, better temperature control methods, as well as more advanced monitoring technology, have become more accessible over time. 

Engineers now use a “strain-based design” philosophy that accounts for the inevitable ground movement caused by permafrost, and plans for pipes that can withstand those forces, he said. Construction practices have also evolved, with directional drilling (an underground tunnelling technique) replacing the traditional open-trench methods.

Major strides have been made in monitoring technology, he added, with fibre optic sensors, digital inspections and predictive analytics that “allow us to have more eyes on those pipes and be more proactive than reactive.” 

Ultimately, Bayat said, building a new pipeline in the North will come with many unknowns.

“This is not the area [where] we go and build pipes every day. … When it comes to the North, yes we have examples, but only a few, and they’re from the past,” he said. 

“These foundations are rapidly changing. What will the pace of that change be? How much further is it going to change? Those are the things that need to be taken into account.”

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Julia-Simone Rutgers is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Summary

• Ducks Unlimited Canada announced it is providing $1-million worth of land to a farming research organization in Manitoba.
• Brookdale Research Farm north of Brandon, Man., will now have more space to test farming and conservation practices.
• The organization says cattle farmers are important partners in conservation on the Prairies, where wetlands are regularly lost to agriculture.

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A Manitoba farming research non-profit will now have more space to let cattle roam and graze on prairie grasslands — and study how that grazing impacts biodiversity — through a partnership with Ducks Unlimited Canada.

On Monday, the long-standing conservation organization announced it is providing $1-million worth of land to nearly double the size of the Brookdale Research Farm just north of Brandon, Man. 

“This expansion of land is going to be an opportunity to do commercial-scale case studies and data collection … and then share it back to producers in a real-world setting,” Mary-Jane Orr, general manager of Manitoba Beef and Forage Initiatives, said in an interview.

Mary-Jane Orr, general manager of Manitoba Beef & Forage Initiatives (left), and Karli Reimer, head of Prairies outreach at Ducks Unlimited Canada, at the Manitoba Legislature on Monday. Photo: Mikaela MacKenzie / Winnipeg Free Press

Brookdale Farm — one of two farm stations managed by Manitoba Beef and Forage Initiatives — typically tested new technologies, land-management practices and other farming innovations on a smaller footprint, less than 20 acres at a time. With the addition of the 467-acre Odanah Pasture, the organization will be able to work with farmers at a more true-to-life scale, helping ease the risk for farmers looking to implement new practices with their herds.

“Oftentimes when you’re doing research at a small scale, the question is: ‘Will this work on a larger farm?’ So this is actually putting that application into practice and showing that, actually, yes, this is going to work for larger farms here in Manitoba,” Karli Reimer, head of communications and outreach at Ducks Unlimited Canada for the Prairies region, said in an interview.

The new parcel is also an opportunity to showcase the impact of restoring croplands to their natural state, Orr added.

Ducks Unlimited Canada purchased the land in 2020 with funds from “conservation-minded government agencies in Canada and the United States, including Manitoba’s conservation trust,” according to a press release. The parcel had previously been used for crop production, and its wetlands and uplands had been drained. Over five years, Ducks Unlimited restored the land to its natural state: a rich grassland with more than 100 wetland basins. 

Healthy wetlands and grasslands are a win-win for cattle farmers and conservationists alike.

“More productive grasslands make for more productive cattle. But those more productive grasslands are also making more productive ecological areas,” Melissa Atchison, a southwest Manitoba cattle producer and the research and extension specialist for Manitoba Beef Producers, said in an interview. 

Healthy wetlands and grasslands are a win-win for cattle farmers and conservationists alike. “More productive grasslands make for more productive cattle,” Melissa Atchison, a southwest Manitoba cattle producer and the research and extension specialist for Manitoba Beef Producers, says. Photo: Supplied by Ducks Unlimited Canada

“Being able to get good production out of our cattle while also providing great benefits from a biodiversity standpoint, from a habitat standpoint, from an ecological goods and services standpoint, is just a really cool win for everybody involved.”

Historically, bison roamed the wetland-dotted prairie, Orr said. As they grazed, they helped diversify the grasslands and created a canopy structure for wildlife and waterfowl. Today’s cattle farms can effectively mimic that process.

“It’s creating this beautiful net win: keeping cattle on the landscape is maintaining habitat for untold numbers of species, from pollinators all the way up to mallards,” she said. 

Cattle rancher Don Guilford on his property in rural Manitoba, which he is conserving through a partnership with Ducks Unlimited. In Manitoba, four football fields of wetland are lost to agricultural development every day. Photo: John Woods / Winnipeg Free Press

Orr said Beef and Forage Initiatives is in the process of landing a collaborator who will raise cattle on Odanah Pasture and share data about their decision-making process, economics and marketing decisions. The research will be shared with other farmers, helping demonstrate what processes, technologies and land-management decisions are most effective for the cattle, the business and the land. 

“We need to be profitable, and environmental sustainability is a big piece of that profitability,” Orr said. 

Manitoba’s billion-dollar beef sector, comprising more than 6,500 cattle farms, plays a key role in conservation, Reimer said.

Monday’s announcement marked the third annual Ducks Unlimited Canada Day in Manitoba, an official recognition honouring the organization’s 90-year history supporting conservation in the province, as well as Manitoba Agriculture Awareness Day.

“Ducks and cows have a lot in common,” Reimer said. “We really care about habitats for waterfowl, wildlife and people — grasslands and wetlands — and that is exactly what the beef sector needs to be profitable and productive.”

Julia-Simone Rutgers is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Summary

• A new report says Canada is falling behind on its commitment to protect 30 per cent of lands and waters by 2030.
• That’s true in Manitoba, too, but a vast Indigenous-led conservation area proposed for the province’s north could help.
• Advocates are urging the federal government to renew conservation funding that is expiring this year, stressing the economic value of natural spaces.

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There are just four years left on the clock for Manitoba — and the rest of the country — in the race to conserve 30 per cent of lands and waters by 2030. But halfway through the timeline adopted at the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity in 2022, Canada has made little progress, adding less than one percentage point to its protected land tally and three points to its protected waters. 

The country needs to double its protected areas to meet its target, known as 30-by-30. But conservation groups, including the Wilderness Committee and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), warn progress could stall even further as federal funding for conservation initiatives is set to run out at the end of the month — and there’s no indication it will be renewed.

“We have a conservation economy that we can build on, that gives local jobs, that helps honour our Indigenous reconciliation commitments,” Sandra Schwartz, national executive director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, said in an interview. 

“It’s an opportunity for the country to invest strategically in our future, while also delivering on a global commitment that our country made.”

The society is urging the federal government to re-invest in conservation, armed with new research showing protected spaces generate significant economic returns. And with the right funding, the Wilderness Committee says Manitoba’s approach to establishing these spaces could be a model for other provinces.

Canada has so far protected 13.8 per cent of land

The world is in the throes of a biodiversity crisis. Wildlife populations declined 70 per cent between 1970 and 2018, according to the Living Planet Index, which measures the relative abundance of more than 5,000 species over time, and the United Nations has found species are being driven to extinction far faster than the natural baseline. When the World Economic Forum released its global risk report in January, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse ranked as the No.2 long-term threat to the global economy. 

“Biodiversity is what makes the world habitable for us,” Eric Reder, director of the Wilderness Committee’s Manitoba office, said. “Habitat for species, the place for nature to be wild, is essential.”

Experts agree habitat loss is a key driver of biodiversity loss. According to a February report from the committee, Canada was already at a disadvantage when the 30-by-30 commitment was adopted in 2022 as part of an effort to halt and reverse this trend. The country had failed to reach any of the conservation targets it agreed to in the previous three decades, and had only managed to formally protect 13 per cent of lands and 12 per cent of waters, lagging behind other nations. 

As of 2026, Canada has improved to just 13.8 per cent of lands and 15.5 per cent of marine areas. It will need to protect another 1.7 million square kilometres, an area the size of Alaska, to meet the target.

Habitat loss is a key driver of the world’s biodiversity crisis, which is causing species to go extinct at a faster rate than the natural baseline. Photo: Ryan Dickie / The Narwhal

Plan to protect Seal River watershed in Manitoba could add 50,000 square kms of conserved areas

Manitoba has formally protected just 11 per cent of its wild areas, despite having “more wilderness within its borders than most countries in the world,” the Wilderness Committee report says.

Still, the report is optimistic about the province’s future. Reder said that’s because the province has a history of empowering Indigenous-led conservation.

Pimachiowin Aki, a stretch of undisturbed boreal forest on the eastern side of the province that has been formally managed by four Anishinaabeg nations since 2002, was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2018. 

More recently, the province has supported an alliance of four Cree and Dene nations in establishing a protected area in the Seal River watershed, a 50,000-square-kilometre expanse of northern Manitoba that encompasses the province’s last undammed major river, and serves as critical habitat for seals, caribou, shorebirds and more than 250 other species.

In January 2024, the province gave the watershed interim protection from mining and other industrial activities; last March the alliance, along with federal and provincial governments, determined a protected area is feasible. When complete, the Seal River watershed could protect seven per cent of the province, increasing Manitoba’s tally to 18 per cent.

Manitoba Environment and Climate Change Minister Mike Moyes said the province has prioritized its partnerships with local communities, including First Nations and rural municipalities, and is working toward a “mosaic” of protected areas through these partnerships. 

“These are folks that live in the areas that we’re talking about, right across the province, and so ensuring that they’re a part of these projects moving forward is critical,” Moyes said. “All of our work is for Manitobans, by Manitobans.”

Conservation advocates urge feds to add funding for protected areas

The Wilderness Committee report notes underfunding is the most significant barrier to protected- area growth, as governments “continue to prioritize short-term resource extraction over long-term protection.” 

The society cautions any progress Canada is making towards the 30-by-30 target could be stymied as federal funding runs out. 

The Enhanced Nature Legacy Fund, introduced in the 2021 budget, provided $2.3 billion over five years to support 30-by-30 initiatives, and aimed to reach an interim target of protecting 25 per cent of lands and waters by 2025. 

That funding expires at the end of the month and the federal government has not indicated whether it will be renewed. A representative for Environment and Climate Change Canada did not answer specific questions about whether Ottawa intends to renew the funding or introduce a new budget line for conservation initiatives.

A federal funding program that supports conservation efforts is expiring at the end of March 2026, and advocates are warning the loss could stymie Canada’s progress on its conservation goals. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Schwartz and leaders of other nature protection groups sent an open letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney this week, urging the government to renew and strengthen funding for nature. 

“Without renewed funding, the conservation work that is already under way and has been for several years could stall,” Schwartz said. “We’d have rural and more remote jobs at risk. We’ll have communities and Indigenous partners left without the support that they were promised.” 

When the money runs out, it will leave the responsibility for funding protected areas to the philanthropic and private sectors, which are not sufficiently resourced to fill the gaps, she added.

Schwartz explained protected areas are comparable to other large infrastructure initiatives, including the mining and oil and gas projects the federal government has championed through its Major Projects Office. 

“Environmental protection is not a trade-off,” Schwartz said. “When we have a healthy environment, we also typically have a very healthy economy. It’s a return on the investments the government has already made.”

Protected areas generate billions for the economy: report

A recent study from the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society found protected spaces are a significant contributor to the economy. 

The federal government spent $1.8 billion on protected areas in the 2023-24 fiscal year. In return, those same areas generated $10.9 billion in gross domestic product and 150,000 jobs — many in rural and remote communities, the report found. Every public and non-profit dollar spent in these areas generated $3.62 in visitor economic activity, jobs in the sector contributed $6.6 billion in labour income and tax revenues generated a return of $1.4 billion.  

“Investing in nature is an affordability act for the future,” Reder said. “The economists are telling us that we need more parks, we need more protected areas, we need more tourism investment. The money folks are telling us that we need to spend on nature.”

Moyes said the province has “a variety of irons in the fire” when it comes to future conservation initiatives, and is working with the federal government, local communities and other partners to meet its 30-by-30 commitments.

“We’re always going to ensure that there is adequate funding to get these projects across the line,” Moyes said.

“The environment is our backbone, and it’s important that we’re protecting the environment in order to have economic development.”

Julia-Simone Rutgers is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Summary

• Winnipeg has a long-term plan to reduce the amount of raw sewage it releases into rivers during storms.
• Part of that plan is to use green infrastructure solutions such as rain gardens and permeable pavement to reduce stormwater runoff.
• One city councillor says Winnipeg should be more ambitious with its adoption of green infrastructure, and wants the province to step in to make it happen.

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A Winnipeg councillor is calling on the province to use its powers under the Environment Act to require the city to use more innovative and green technology solutions as it overhauls its sewage system.

In a letter to Manitoba Environment Minister Mike Moyes, Coun. Brian Mayes (St. Vital) asked whether the province is enforcing a clause in the environmental licence for combined sewer overflows that requires the city to use “green technology and innovative practices” when designing and building new sewage infrastructure. 

“If the city is not implementing measures to meet the ‘green technology’ and ‘innovative practices’ requirements, it is important to understand how the province interprets these terms and how compliance … is being evaluated and enforced,” Mayes wrote. 

“The mandatory wording of the licence suggests these provisions are not discretionary.”

Winnipeg is in the early stages of a 70-year master plan to reduce combined sewer overflows — a phenomenon where diluted raw sewage is released into the city’s rivers during heavy rain or spring melts — by separating runoff and household sewage pipes where possible and installing rainwater storage and screening infrastructure across the sewage system. 

Addressing the issue has been long overdue. Between 2013 and 2023, the city dumped 115 billion litres of sewage into its river system.

‘Afraid of the water’? Life in a city that dumps billions of litres of raw sewage into lakes and rivers

The city has set aside about 10 per cent of the capital budget for these upgrades to “review and implement” green infrastructure solutions such as rain gardens, permeable pavements and retention ponds.

While Mayes said he appreciates the nearly $105 million the city plans to spend, he believes Winnipeg “really could be doing more.”

“We can’t just keep building these concrete solutions,” Mayes said in an interview.

“It’s good that we’re trying to reduce raw sewage going into the rivers. That is a good thing, I am proud of that. I think if we can do some of it in a more environmentally friendly way, then that’s a victory.” 

Mayes said he asked city staff about the requirement after Winnipeg announced a pilot project to build catch basins — essentially storm drains — in areas of the city with combined sewers. 

At a February meeting of council’s waste and water committee, department staff told councillors “there really isn’t an opportunity for green infrastructure” in the catch basin initiative and noted the city takes “a global approach” to green technology requirements.

“Our understanding of the intent of the clause was not so much that every piece of pipe put in the ground has to have a green component. It was that we need to prioritize overall getting more green infrastructure in our system,” department director Tim Shanks said during the meeting.

Mayes isn’t convinced the city’s approach satisfies the requirements laid out in the environment licence. He would like to see the province encourage the city to invest more in innovative solutions like green roofs and rain gardens that can both absorb and filter stormwater before it reaches the sewer system. 

The Red River flows through Winnipeg on its way to Lake Winnipeg, which is about an hour’s drive north of the city. Photo: Ruth Bonneville / Winnipeg Free Press

“We shouldn’t just forget about this,” Mayes said, suggesting the importance of the combined sewer master plan has been overshadowed by larger, more expensive infrastructure projects like the upgrades to the North End water treatment plant.

“Anything we can do to reduce that sewage overflow risk, I think, is another step forward.”

Cities across North America have employed natural infrastructure solutions to reduce the amount of rainwater and runoff that enters the sewers, thereby reducing strain on aging pipes and reducing the frequency of sewer overflows.

Billions of litres of sewage in the rivers — can it be fixed?

In a statement, city communications coordinator Lisa Marquardson explained the city looks for green infrastructure opportunities in the preliminary design stage of its sewer projects. 

“If an option makes sense and is feasible, we carry it forward into detailed design and, where possible, into construction,” Marquardson said.

Recent successes include a retention pond in the Cockburn Calrossie drainage area in southwest Winnipeg and the implementation of Silva cells, underground structures filled with loosely packed soil capable of both retaining larger volumes of stormwater and supporting large tree growth in the northeast. The city has also planned a soil storage and boulevard rain garden project on Leila Avenue and a dry pond for water retention in the city’s north end. Further green infrastructure opportunities are currently being assessed in several sewer districts.

Marquardson said the city regularly updates the province on its combined sewer projects and “because [green infrastructure] and innovative practices are part of our standard approach … we have been able to provide these updates without issue.”

In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for the province said Manitoba has approved the city’s global approach, which “applies the green‑infrastructure requirement at the regional infrastructure level rather than a neighbourhood level,” adding the Environment Department regularly meets with the city to discuss progress toward the combined sewer overflow master plan. 

“Our government is committed to taking care of the environment and of our waterways in Manitoba,” Environment Minister Moyes said in a statement. 

“We are working with the city to make sure investments are made in smart, green infrastructure that protect our communities, homes and rivers.”

Julia-Simone Rutgers is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

The marine town of Churchill, Man., cherished for its wildlife, landscapes and history, has recently taken on a new sense of national importance. Plans to expand Canada’s lone deepwater Arctic port on the shores of Hudson Bay have gained momentum — and investment — in the last year as the country looks north for solutions to an unprecedented conflict with its southern neighbours. 

Premier Wab Kinew has pitched the Port of Churchill as an answer to Canada’s trade concerns, and a means of galvanizing both provincial and national economies. Prime Minister Mark Carney has designated a plan to upgrade the port facilities as “transformative,” committing millions in federal dollars to the project and touting its merits in meetings with European trade partners. In late January, Kinew announced the province was in talks with several companies, including at least one major energy company, about investing in port expansion.

“I think a few of those companies are starting to say that they’re very serious about making an investment in Manitoba,” Kinew said in an interview earlier this month. “That would lead to infrastructure being built to do more export on Hudson Bay, which would be huge for our provincial economy.”

The Port of Churchill Plus proposal envisions a new resource corridor capable of transporting Western Canada’s natural resources, including liquefied natural gas, oil, mineral ores, potash, fertilizer and agricultural products, to Hudson Bay, where they can be shipped to international markets. 

It would likely include an upgraded northern railway, an all-season road, year-round shipping routes and a fossil fuel pipeline.

Pipe dreams: decoding the political debate on shipping oil through Manitoba’s Arctic port

This is far from the first time the near-century-old port has garnered attention from politicians keen to see it reach its potential as an international trade hub. But where several attempts to grow the capacity of the historic grain port fizzled out, this latest proposal is gaining steam.  

Federal and provincial governments have already committed more than $500 million combined for infrastructure upgrades and preliminary research. A study to gauge industry interest in the project is underway, as is a study of the operational requirements to allow for year-round traffic in Hudson Bay. Manitoba has inked a memorandum of understanding with Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and the territories to collaborate on “nation-building infrastructure” and a west-to-east economic corridor. 

Past efforts to expand the port and diversify its trade potential were hampered by a lack of public and private investment. The remote location, difficult terrain and short ice-free shipping season make the port and associated Hudson Bay Railway particularly expensive.

A ship prepares to be loaded with grain at the Port of Churchill in 1978. The port opened in 1931 to offer a northern grain transport route for farmers in the Prairies. Photo: Bob Lowery / Winnipeg Free Press

“It wasn’t seen as a priority,” Barry Prentice, professor of supply chain management at the University of Manitoba, says in an interview. 

But threats to Canada’s Arctic sovereignty and tariffs from its largest trade partner have “stirred up the pot a bit,” he says. At the same time, new technologies and the realities of a rapidly changing northern climate have created opportunities to improve the economics of an Arctic trade route.

“The stars are kind of aligning so that Churchill again becomes a viable and maybe very attractive route,” Prentice says.

While experts are divided on whether the plans for a northern Manitoba resource corridor will come to fruition this time around, they agree the Arctic is changing — and it’s possible for Churchill to take on a more robust role in national trade.

From a ‘neglected port’ to a new vision for Churchill

When Arctic Gateway Group, a consortium of 29 First Nations, 12 local governments and corporate investors, purchased the port and the Hudson Bay Railway from its former American owners in 2018, the “neglected” infrastructure was in disrepair, president and chief executive officer Chris Avery says.

The railway washed out in 2017, cutting off communities in Manitoba and Nunavut that relied on the line for supplies and transportation. The rail line’s foundation was sinking in the muskeg, culverts were blocked, rail ties hadn’t been replaced. The port itself had rotting timber, exposed rebar and sinkholes in the wharf deck, Avery says. It had been shuttered in 2016. 

Led by Churchill Mayor Mike Spence and several northern Indigenous communities, Arctic Gateway Group thought: “Enough is enough. We need to take back control of this asset that communities are dependent on, and by the way, even the country is dependent on,” Avery explains.

Chris Avery, chief executive officer of Arctic Gateway Group, which purchased the Port of Churchill in 2018, says the group’s goal in developing the port is to support Canada’s efforts to diversify trade, assert northern sovereignty and advance Indigenous economic reconciliation. Photo: Mike Deal / Winnipeg Free Press

The group secured government funding to repair and upgrade the existing infrastructure. Under the new ownership, port activity resumed: grain and northern supply shipments restarted in 2019 and the first critical mineral shipments in more than 20 years set sail in 2024. 

Momentum for the port swelled the following year, in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats of Canadian annexation and skyrocketing tariffs. Canadian leaders stressed a need to strengthen Arctic sovereignty and open new avenues for trade; Kinew turned to the opportunity presented by the northern port.

“The whole [situation] with Trump and the U.S. has changed a lot of our thinking about the economy,” Kinew said last spring. “We’ve got minerals, we’ve got oil and gas. We’ve got all sorts of great goods that we want to export.”

During a meeting between premiers and Carney in June to pitch nation-building projects for a first-of-its-kind Major Projects Office, Kinew said a trade corridor to Hudson Bay could include a pipeline to carry Canadian oil and gas products, hydrogen, potash or other natural resources. 

And now Port of Churchill Plus has landed on the Major Projects Office’s list of transformative strategies, announced in September. 

Avery says the consortium’s vision is to support Canada’s efforts to diversify trade, assert northern sovereignty and advance Indigenous economic reconciliation by becoming “a major port.” 

To get there, it will need four significant pieces of infrastructure.

The existing railway needs to be upgraded to class one standards, meaning it can carry rail cars with a maximum weight of almost 130,000 kilograms. While that’s only about a seven per cent increase compared to current weight limits, “our customers tell us that seven per cent makes a big difference.” 

On top of rail, Churchill will need all-season road access to allow shippers and customers easier access to the port, with the added benefit of linking several northern communities that currently rely on an increasingly unpredictable winter-road network. Churchill, 1,000 kilometres north of Winnipeg, is only accessible by rail or plane. The provincial highway network currently ends near Gillam, Man., almost 300 kilometres southwest of the port town.

Any development of the Port of Churchill will require all-season road access, as the site and town, 1,000 kilometres north of Winnipeg, are currently only accessible via plane and rail. Many northern communities currentlyrely on unpredictable winter roads. Photo: Dylan Robertson / Winnipeg Free Press

The port itself will need to accommodate year-round shipping, Avery says. Right now, it’s operational for about four months per year when the ice cover on Hudson Bay is at a minimum. Due to climate impacts, that’s expected to change in the coming decades, but Churchill will need icebreakers in the meantime. 

Finally, to capitalize on “the No. 1 Canadian export, which is energy products,” Avery says Manitoba will need a way to get those products to northern tidewater. While the company acknowledges oil and gas products can be shipped by rail (the port already transports diesel and other fuels as part of its northern re-supply shipments), he says “everything is being considered, including pipelines.” 

At least two companies have proposed pipeline routes from Alberta’s oilsands to Hudson Bay.

NeeStaNan, a Manitoba and Alberta-based company with First Nations owners, has proposed a “utility corridor” to Port Nelson, Man., a site 300 kilometres southeast of Churchill, that would be capable of exporting liquefied natural gas. The company’s website says it has secured support from two Canadian natural gas producers and is exploring the feasibility of exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) via a facility at the mouth of the Nelson River. 

The other, an Alberta-based organization called Western Energy Corridor, proposes developing a link between Churchill and Western Canada that could contain “one or more combinations of a natural gas transmission system, an oil pipeline or a high-voltage electric transmission system.” The company’s website states it has mapped out a 1,560-kilometre corridor and drafted documents for initial regulatory filing.

Is a fossil fuel pipeline really feasible in the north?

Past proposals to pipe Alberta oil to Manitoba’s northern coast have failed. According to Heather Exner-Pirot, director of energy, natural resources and environment at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, that’s at least in part because: “The economics of a seasonal port are terrible.”

“The question isn’t: ‘Has a pipeline ever been built this far north?’ ” she says. “The question is: ‘Can you put this infrastructure in a seasonal port and still get a return, still attract investment and still attract shippers — does it make economic sense?’ ”

As of right now, Exner-Pirot says, the answer is no. 

What makes Churchill unique isn’t just that the port is in deep Arctic waters. Similar ports exist in Alaska, Greenland, Norway and Russia. But those are located in places with year-round access to open water, she says; Hudson Bay, by comparison, is covered in ice about seven months per year. 

Typically, these part-time ports are used for what Exner-Pirot calls destination shipping. Goods are shipped in and out of a specific location like a community or a mine over the course of a much shorter shipping season. 

“It’s more expensive, it’s logistically constrained and people can only sell … or receive their goods for a few months a year,” she says.

Exner-Pirot says there is “absolutely not” an economic case for building an oil or gas pipeline to Churchill, where the shipping season is about four or five months long.

“If you build an oil pipeline over 1,000 kilometres, you better be using it every day,” she says.

A map depicting the approximate location of all federally regulated oil and gas pipelines in Western Canada. Provincially regulated pipelines are not depicted. Source: Canada Energy Regulator. Map: Julia-Simone Rutgers / The Narwhal and Winnipeg Free Press

Pipelines take decades to build and cost billions; they also face significant regulatory hurdles and often staunch opposition from Indigenous communities, environmental advocates and residents. Liquefaction facilities for natural gas, which Kinew has floated as a possibility for Churchill, aren’t cheap either — a recently completed facility in Kitimat, B.C., cost $18 billion.

Opposition to pipeline development, alongside Impact Assessment legislation that empowers the federal government to review the environmental, social and economic impacts of major projects, has created conditions where “an interprovincial pipeline in Canada has borne an unacceptable political risk,” Exner-Pirot says.

“Pipelines are built every single day. We invest billions of dollars into pipelines every single year,” Exner-Pirot says. “It’s the … pipelines that have to cross either a provincial border or an international border that are the problem.”

Manitoba’s premier has already faced criticism for his recent support of new oil and gas infrastructure to Churchill. Former NDP vice-president Chris Wiebe told the Free Press the proposal was a reversal from the party’s “no new pipelines” stance during the election campaign, while Clayton Thomas-Müller, an author and environmentalist from Mathias Colomb Cree Nation, called the proposal “jarring and triggering” in The Globe and Mail.

Experts say it’s not economically feasible to build an oil or gas pipeline to Churchill, Man., as the Hudson Bay port is inactive for several months of the year due to sea ice cover. Pipelines take years to build, are expensive and, like the Coastal GasLink pipeline in northern B.C. shown above, often face dedicated resistance from Indigenous communities. Photo: Matt Simmons / The Narwhal

Exner-Pirot believes funds to upgrade the Port of Churchill could be better spent on other, year-round rail and port infrastructure. The Port of Vancouver is in need of investment, she says, adding exporters in Prince Rupert, B.C., only have one class of rail line capable of carrying the heaviest loads. 

“Everyone is just begging the government to fix the West Coast port issues and they’re spending half of their political attention on Churchill,” she says. “It’s very frustrating.”

Developing a resource corridor through the tundra comes with additional costly challenges. The shifting muskeg and permafrost — increasingly unpredictable due to a rapidly changing climate — makes infrastructure more expensive to maintain. 

But University of Manitoba’s Prentice says these challenges aren’t insurmountable.

“They built an oil pipeline across Alaska, above ground, and it still functions,” he says. “I don’t think it’s something that the pipeline industry is incapable of doing again, it’s just a matter of the costs and whether you have an investor willing to do it.”

The Arctic is changing — so is Arctic shipping

For many, the most compelling argument for a more robust trade network through the Arctic is that climate change will open up shipping routes as sea ice melts.

Arctic Gateway Group is working with University of Manitoba researchers to better understand how the ice is changing and what impacts it will have on shipping. 

“The preliminary results of their study tell us that with climate change, the sea lanes can be open for six months of the year already … without any icebreakers or new types of equipment,” Avery says. “By the end of the century, or within the lifetime of our kids, the sea lanes will be open on a year-round basis for commercial shipping.”

Feiyue Wang, director of the Churchill Marine Observatory and one of the professors involved in the research, says the ice-free period in Hudson Bay gets about one day longer every year, based on observed ice cover between 1979 and 2025. That trajectory will likely accelerate in the latter half of the century, he says.

“Even at this moment, the shipping window is already much longer than the current operational window at the Port of Churchill,” Wang says.

Feiyue Wang, director of the Churchill Marine Observatory and a University of Manitoba professor involved in research on the Port of Churchill expansion, says climate change is already melting sea ice and lengthening the harbour’s operational period. Photos: Ruth Bonneville / Winnipeg Free Press

Shipping is picking up, according to a report from Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment, an Arctic council working group. More ships passed through the Arctic polar code area in 2025 than in any of the last 12 years, with the number of unique ships increasing 40 per cent over that time.

While most were fishing vessels, nearly 200 boats carrying oil, oil products, gas or chemicals passed through the region last year — again 40 per cent more than in 2013.

Mining has prompted some of the shipping increase, the report notes. Bulk carriers, which carry cargo like mining ore, sailed 156 per cent more nautical miles in the Arctic last year than in 2013. Natural gas vessels were unheard of in Arctic waters in 2014, but as of 2025, there were 40 unique gas tankers in the North sailing more than 866,000 nautical miles combined.

But “just because the bay is ice-free, doesn’t mean it’s navigable,” Wang says.

Shipping routes through the Arctic require a continuous ice-free pathway. While much of Hudson Bay is covered by “first-year ice,” which forms in the winter and melts in the summer, multi-year ice in the high Arctic could float south and complicate pathways through the Northwest Passage. Ice conditions will likely be highly variable based on weather and climatic conditions, Wang says.

That means Canada will continue to need icebreakers to navigate the Arctic. 

More shipping increases risk of a spill. Researchers warn it could be devastating

With more tankers carrying oil and gas through the remote and extreme Arctic waters, the risk of an oil spill becomes harder to ignore. 

While part of Wang’s research has focused on understanding the changes to the shipping season as a result of climate change, he’s particularly passionate about another aspect of the marine observatory’s work: “How would you actually develop that shipping in a way that is not only economically viable, but environmentally sustainable and culturally appropriate?”

In the case of small leaks in warmer climes, the ocean is full of microorganisms that can quickly absorb oil and clean up a spill. 

“What really concerns us is if you have a moderate, or even worse, a major oil spill … how can we actually clean that up?” Wang says.

Typically, spills are recovered either by burning oil off the water, which gets rid of the majority of a spill but produces a potentially toxic smoke, or by dispersing the oil into the smallest droplets possible, which allows the contaminants to quickly flow into the “much larger volume of the ocean” and be absorbed and diluted by natural processes.

But those methods are designed for warmer oceans. “We know very little about how those will work out in a system like Hudson Bay,” Wang says.

The remote and dangerous nature of the Arctic, with its poor visibility, long hours of darkness and a maze of sea ice to navigate would likely mean a longer wait for cleanup to begin. Freezing temperatures slow the work of the ocean’s natural oil scrubbers, meaning spills would take longer to decompose. More concerning: existing cleanup plans assume an ice-free surface. If oil becomes trapped under the ice, it may be impossible to find and remove. 

“If you have an oil spill, the best time window to respond is right away,” Wang says. 

The longer oil is left to spread with the fast-moving currents, “more profound damage to the marine ecosystem” may occur.

In the case of a large spill, impacts on local ecosystems and communities could be devastating. Vegetation and animal life could be contaminated, damaging Indigenous food sources. Local fisheries and tourism industries would likely be affected too, with far-reaching economic consequences. Communities exposed to contaminants may also face human health risks.

Major oil spills pose risks to local ecosystems and communities, including to animals in the affected area. Polar bears are a staple figure in Manitoba’s north and could be impacted if an oil spill were to occur in Hudson Bay and at the Port of Churchill. Photos: Ruth Bonneville (left); Dylan Robertson (right) / Winnipeg Free Press

“I’m obviously in favour of fossil fuel development, but I’m not in favour of doing it in the most expensive, most dangerous way possible,” Exner-Pirot, at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, says.

But from Wang’s perspective: “Just because there’s a risk of an oil spill does not mean we should not have increased shipping, right? Just because there’s always the risk of a car crashing does not mean that we should not drive on the highway.”

Wang believes the technology and tools to respond to an ecological emergency can — and will — be developed. Crucially, he says, they will need to be developed in partnership with Indigenous communities who have extensive Traditional Knowledge of the marine environment. 

Ideally, he says, governments will invest in not only the technology to detect and respond to spills in the Arctic, but also in training local communities to lead response efforts. 

‘Generational opportunities’ in Churchill: Arctic Gateway Group

Wang has worked closely with Indigenous communities around Churchill and in the Kivalliq region of Nunavut for over a decade. Overwhelmingly, he says, these communities want to see developments that improve career opportunities, living conditions and access to health and education — but only if those developments put the community’s interests front and centre.

“That’s where this environmental piece, to me, is the most important one,” Wang says. “Everyone is talking about this Port of Churchill Plus project as a potential nation-building project, but if the environmental aspect and the Indigenous aspect … are not addressed properly, I don’t think this project is going to go anywhere.” 

Manitoba’s leaders are taking a similar approach. In December, Kinew announced the Port of Churchill Plus project will be led by a new Crown-Indigenous Corporation, a first-of-its-kind leadership structure that will bring government representatives and Indigenous leaders together to guide development. The corporation is expected to be formally established in March. 

During a recent visit to Churchill to meet with community members and stakeholders to discuss the future of the port, Kinew joined federal representatives to announce $250,000 to study the feasibility of a marine conservation area in Hudson Bay. 

‘Never been more urgent’: new conservation area in Canada’s North inches closer to reality 

“When we’re talking about pursuing export and import along Hudson Bay, we can’t do that without thinking about the environment,” Kinew said during the announcement.

“Instead of just trying to build up some massive export terminal and then wait … to highlight the downsides years in the future, we’re saying let’s have that conversation now.”

In a subsequent interview, Kinew said Churchill residents expressed both excitement about the port’s potential and some concern about the environmental impacts. The resource corridor he envisions could include a pipeline, a transmission line, an all-weather road and an LNG terminal, but he cautions “that’s just one potential avenue.” 

“Likely, to make a big project work in Hudson Bay, it’s going to be a mix of products. You probably have critical minerals, agricultural products, manufactured goods, northern re-supply for Nunavut all working together there,” he said.

At Arctic Gateway Group, Avery says the company is already in talks with companies that produce many of these commodities, including critical minerals like nickel and copper, potash and silica sand and agricultural products. The communities that own the port and rail “want to see a balance,” he says. 

“They want to make sure that where they live is protected, but they also want to see generational opportunities for themselves, their kids and their grandkids.”

Julia-Simone Rutgers is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

For the first six months after Winnipeg Transit’s $20.4-million network overhaul, city officials had little information to assess how well the new system was working.

Flaws in the vision meant to rekindle the city’s relationship with transit have been widely reported — ridership is down, service hours are shorter and passengers are so underwhelmed, some users, in rare cases, have reportedly bought cars for the first time. Instead of encouraging more Winnipeggers onto the bus, the system appears to be driving users away.

The city’s data had been plagued by a faulty GPS tracking system that left major gaps in the first four months of ridership and performance numbers, which prevented Winnipeg transit from making significant adjustments to the system. 

‘Balancing act’ or ‘disaster’? Winnipeg’s transit overhaul, mapped

The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press set out to understand when and why ridership was lagging. While the independent analysis showed declines on weeknights and weekends are far steeper than previously reported, transit officials warned the city’s publicly available figures are unreliable.

The city’s own data analysis, which estimates daily ridership based on sensors installed on about 20 per cent of the buses, shows the average weekday passengers dropped nearly 14 per cent this fall compared to a year ago, and is expected to result in a $8.5-million hit to fare revenue this year.

Winnipeg Transit’s all-new network was supposed to make transit easier to use for all riders, but the city’s data — while not entirely reliable — suggests ridership is down, service hours are shorter and peak usage hours have declined. Photo: Mikaela MacKenzie / Winnipeg Free Press

Bjorn Radstrom, manager of service development for Winnipeg Transit, said a problem with transit’s GPS system — which was not resolved until early November — means the city is missing reliable information from September and October, the busiest months of the year, leaving him “leery to draw any solid conclusions” from the numbers.

“The GPS problem has tied our hands far more than people realize,” Radstrom said. 

The lack of information is problematic, particularly during the early stages of an overhaul, Orly Linovski, an associate professor of city planning at the University of Manitoba, said.

“It’s impossible to make evidence-informed decisions if we don’t have the evidence,” Linovski said.

‘No question’ ridership dropped after significant transit overhaul

Passenger counts are one of several metrics transit planners use to evaluate whether the network is working as intended, identify problem areas and make future adjustments. In the wake of what Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham has called the “most significant change to transit” in the city’s history, a lack of reliable ridership numbers and on-time performance data has made planning decisions more challenging, Radstrom said. 

Still, “We do know ridership has dropped,” he said. “There’s no question.”

Bjorn Radstrom, manager of service development for Winnipeg Transit, said he expected people to stop riding the bus as service changed, but that ridership would pick up again once users realized there was a new and better service available to them. But changes like cutting nighttime service hours seem to have reduced overall ridership. Photo: Ruth Bonneville / Winnipeg Free Press

Between September and December 2025, approximately 178,500 people boarded a bus every weekday, down from just over 207,000, or 14 per cent, the year prior.

But according to The Narwhal and Free Press analysis, ridership appears to decline more steeply after students and rush-hour commuters get home. Passenger counts decreased 23 per cent during the evening hours (6:30-10:30 p.m.), while nighttime ridership (after 10:30 p.m.) dropped nearly 40 per cent. 

Weekend drops were even more dramatic, prompting surprise from Radstrom. While he later confirmed The Narwhal and Free Press’s calculations were correct based on the publicly available passenger counts, he stressed the city’s data was unreliable. 

The city only sampled about half the number of trips it normally would on Saturdays and Sundays, meaning the counts are more likely to be inaccurate, he explained, and are based almost exclusively on November and December, when ridership starts a seasonal tail-off. 

Based on data from the tap-to-ride (Peggo) fare system and ticket sales, Winnipeg Transit calculated ridership dropped 22 per cent on Saturdays and 18 per cent on Sundays. Those drops are each about 50 percentage points lower than the numbers in the city’s publicly available database — further demonstrating a marked disparity between datasets.

Better service is the key to increasing transit use

Radstrom expected some people to stop riding the bus as service changed, but that ridership would recover as new users realized there is “better, more frequent service closer to them,” he said. 

As part of the network redesign, transit reduced late-night operating hours. As a result, The Narwhal and Free Press analysis found, the number of nighttime bus trips across the city dropped 22 per cent on weekday evenings and nearly 50 per cent on weekday nights. The nighttime service cuts were widely criticized by riders, prompting the city to extend hours for its on-demand service. In the spring, it plans to juggle some route schedules to extend service until after midnight. 

“We wanted to start doing this in September with the summer data, but we didn’t have it because of GPS problems. We also wanted to start doing it earlier with fall data, but we didn’t have it.”

More than numbers is needed to assess the impact of the new transit system, says Orly Linovski, an associate professor of city planning at the University of Manitoba. Something like a user and non-user experience survey would help flesh out the full picture. Photo: Mikaela MacKenzie / Winnipeg Free Press

It’s only in recent weeks Radstrom and other planners have been able to “dig in” and plan adjustments for spring. Radstrom said transit wants to “demonstrate some actual progress” when April’s schedule is released, and will be able to “do a few really good things … but not as much as if we’d had all the data for the full amount of time we wanted it.” 

On Wednesday, Winnipeg Transit delivered an unplanned verbal report to the city’s public works committee acknowledging the GPS issues have now been resolved to within one per cent of baseline error levels. 

Linovski said the city needs more than just numbers to assess how well the new network is performing. 

“[Ridership data] gives us no information about why people are taking transit or not taking transit. It gives us no information about what their experience is like on transit,” she said, suggesting surveying users and non-users would help form a clearer picture. 

“Service really needs to improve if you’re going to switch people over to transit.” 

Increased funding increases ridership … and decreases pollution transit advocates

A 2018 study by the Canadian Urban Transit Association has determined a 10 per cent increase in hours a bus is on the road (called vehicle revenue hours) leads to a 10 per cent increase in ridership. The association also found that a 10 per cent increase to operating budgets translates to a 5.5 per cent increase in revenue hours, even when the costs of labour, fuel and maintenance are factored in.

Despite steadily increasing its operating budget and allocating more property tax dollars to Winnipeg Transit since 2020, it is underfunded compared to agencies across the country. 

In late January, James Van Gerwen, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1505, which represents transit operators, was one of several public advocacy group representatives to call on the province to increase climate funding in its upcoming budget. Van Gerwen advocated specifically for the province to restore a 50-50 transit funding partnership with the City of Winnipeg that was cut in 2016. 

‘Start scaling up now’: 26 groups call on Manitoba to take bolder climate action

Since then, the Manitoba government has provided about $42 million to Winnipeg Transit every year. As the operating budget has grown, the province’s share of the costs has shrunk to just 15 per cent. 

Van Gerwen is confident “the ridership will be there” with a properly funded system that can commit to expanded service, more safety and more reliability.

Radstrom is on the same page. A healthier budget will allow him to implement the changes needed to make the system convenient for more riders, and mitigate the impacts of schedule interruptions like mechanical failures.

And experts agree: the more people who ride the bus, the greater the benefits in terms of carbon pollution. “Just getting people on a bus is a huge reduction in greenhouse gas emissions,” the Canadian Urban Transit Association’s communications director, Jon MacMull, said. “Transit is in itself an emissions reduction tool, and it should be considered a priority for investment.”

Julia-Simone Rutgers is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

In the wake of a devastating wildfire season and severe drought year, a group of more than two dozen organizations is calling on the Manitoba government to step up its investments in climate solutions in its upcoming budget.

Representatives from some of the organizations gathered at the legislature on Thursday to present a letter calling for increased investment in energy efficiency initiatives, public and active transportation and land and water protection in the upcoming spring budget. 

“Manitoba is facing some of the worst climate impacts that we’ve ever seen,” Manitoba’s Climate Action Team director Laura Cameron said Thursday, referencing the devastating 2025 fire season and the droughts that have strained Manitoba Hydro’s bottom line. 

“We know that these impacts are only going to get worse the longer the world, and Manitoba, delays transitioning off of fossil fuels.”

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The letter, organized by Climate Action Team Manitoba, was signed by 26 groups representing a range of sectors, including labour, health, transportation and business, and was addressed to Premier Wab Kinew, Finance Minister Adrien Sala and Environment and Climate Change Minister Mike Moyes.

When the province first unveiled its climate strategy in October, outlining a plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 through decarbonization, electrification and conservation projects, environmental advocates celebrated the vision but criticized the lack of funding commitments and firm timelines.

Laura Cameron, director for Manitoba’s Climate Action Team, spoke at the provincial legislature on Jan. 29, 2026, to call for increased investment in energy efficiency and public transportation in the upcoming budget. ”Manitoba is facing some of the worst climate impacts that we’ve ever seen,“ she said. Photo: Ruth Bonneville / Winnipeg Free Press

Since then, the province has spent just $72 million on its emissions-reduction projects, Cameron said, a fraction of the nearly $1.5 billion it’s spent extending the provincial gas tax holiday and building highways, or the $3 billion Manitoba Hydro plans to spend on a new gas-fired power plant.

“If we are serious about reducing emissions significantly by 2030 — which is now less than five years away — and getting to zero by 2050, we need to be operating at a different scale,” Cameron said. 

The letter recommends boosting investment in Efficiency Manitoba and other programs that can help slash household energy bills and create job opportunities in the green building sector while cutting into one of Manitoba’s largest sources of pollution: natural gas heating.

“Building retrofit investments create more local jobs, dollar for dollar, than almost any other investment in the energy system,” Niall Harney, senior researcher at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, said. 

According to Elizabeth Kaggwa, representing Sustainable Building Manitoba, the building sector is responsible for about one-third of provincial energy use and a similar proportion of carbon emissions. While Efficiency Manitoba has made progress toward addressing household energy use, expanding these programs will reduce strain on the power grid, cut costs for homeowners and support construction, manufacturing and trade sectors. 

“That’s why we’re calling on the province to make energy efficiency and demand response a cornerstone of budget 2026 — not as a pilot, not as a side program, but as a core investment in Manitoba’s future,” Kaggwa said. 

The groups also recommend the province increase permanent and long-term operating funding for urban, intercity and rural transit — including restoring the 50-50 transit funding partnership with the City of Winnipeg — and increase funds for active transportation.

“Building retrofit investments create more local jobs, dollar for dollar, than almost any other investment in the energy system,” Niall Harney of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives said at the event. Photo: Ruth Bonneville / Winnipeg Free Press

“Public transportation is one of the most effective tools that we have to reduce emissions and air pollution while making daily life more affordable,” James Van Gerwen, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1505, representing the city’s transit workers, said. 

Finally, the letter recommends the province increase staffing in the Parks branch and create a fund to support Indigenous nations working on land and water protection as it works toward conserving 30 per cent of lands and waters by 2030. 

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“Protecting nature is not a luxury, it is a smart, long-term investment,” Ron Thiessen, executive director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society’s Manitoba chapter, said. “Healthy ecosystems safeguard drinking water, reduce climate risks, support tourism and recreation and sustain cultural and local livelihoods.” 

While Thiessen lauded the government’s ongoing work to establish a conservation area in the Seal River Watershed and its interest in a marine conservation area in Western Hudson Bay, he said previous budgets have fallen short of the resources needed to reach 30 by 30 goals. 

Manitoba’s environment minister listened as climate groups presented budget recommendations Thursday. Moyes said afterwards he looks forward to working with the groups, and noted staffing has already increased within his department.

Manitoba’s 2026 budget will be tabled in the spring. Around that same time, Moyes said, the environment department will begin rolling out legislated emissions reduction targets, and detailed action plans promised under the net-zero pathway. 

Julia-Simone Rutgers is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.

Updated Feb. 3, 2026, at 10:20 a.m. CT: A previous version of this story used an incorrect surname for Elizabeth Kaggwa, who was representing Sustainable Building Manitoba.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Amid his usual slate of year-end sit-downs and lookahead interviews in late December, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew delivered a surprise announcement: the political ethics scandal involving Sio Silica’s controversial sand mine isn’t over yet. 

Starting as early as this year, he said, the province would hold a public inquiry into the previous Conservative government’s attempt to license the mine — which proposes using a previously untested airlift method to extract silica sand, a resource used in advanced technologies like batteries and solar glass, from a southeastern Manitoba aquifer — days after losing the 2023 election. Part of the inquiry’s work, he added, would be to examine whether Manitoba’s lobbying rules are “strong enough … to make sure that you, the average person, know what’s going on with your government officials.” 

As for the laws as they stand now, he told CBC, “I think we can do better.” 

Kinew is one of few politicians in the last decade to publicly critique the province’s lobbying legislation. The Lobbyists Registration Act came into force in 2012 and outside a handful of tweaks — most notably a ban on gifts to politicians — has remained virtually unchanged.

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew announced in late December that his government would hold a public inquiry into the previous Conservative government’s attempts to license the Sio Silica mine. The controversial project and political play raised issues about Manitoba’s lobbying legislation. Photo: Ruth Bonneville / Winnipeg Free Press

But following an ethics investigation that culminated in three provincial cabinet members, including former premier Heather Stefanson, being fined for violating conflict-of-interest policies, the regulations that govern relationships between government officials and those who seek to influence their decision-making are under the spotlight. 

In his final report, then-ethics commissioner Jeffrey Schnoor found board members, executives and consultants working on behalf of the mining company had met and communicated with public officials during the transition period between governments, in some cases urging the province to move ahead with the licence approval. The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press found many of these communications were not listed in the lobbyist registry.

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While Schnoor did not indicate any lobbying regulations had been broken, Paul Thomas, a University of Manitoba professor emeritus in political science, believes these off-the-book activities highlight gaps in the rules.

“Sio Silica is kind of a major example of what, in the worst-case scenario, can happen,” he said in an interview.

Lobbying, Thomas said, is as old as government itself. It is, fundamentally, a process by which individuals and groups can advocate their interests to the government and shape policy, law and funding. But it is often viewed with “an aura of suspicion,” he said, because of the possibility for conflicts of interest and “back-door” tactics. 

To mitigate those risks and ensure transparency, lobbying activities are guided by a set of conduct rules and recorded in a publicly available registry. Through the registry, members of the public should be able to understand who is trying to influence government decisions — and what they’re hoping to achieve.

Former Manitoba premier Heather Stefanson was fined for violating conflict-of-interest policies after her government tried to push the Sio Silicia mine through after the 2023 provincial election. Photo: Mikaela MacKenzie / Winnipeg Free Press

Thomas believes Manitoba’s rules are “far behind” best practices in other provinces: the registry is hard to navigate and lacking in detail, the penalties for improper lobbying lack teeth and the law leaves plenty of room for informal, undisclosed activities.

Despite its flaws, Manitoba’s registry offers valuable insight into the voices seeking to shape government decision-making.

The Narwhal and Winnipeg Free Press set out to better understand what is — and is not — known about the voices seeking to influence government decision-making by analyzing the lobbyist registry over the first two years of the NDP government. 

Here’s what we found.

What’s in the registry?

All lobbyists working in Manitoba are required to file returns, called registrations, detailing their activities, including who they contacted, what organization they lobbied for and what they were lobbying about. These registrations, filed periodically, have been collected and stored in the registry since 2012. 

The level of detail included in the registration is left up to the lobbyist, and varies widely throughout the registry.

There were just shy of 1,500 registrations between Oct. 1, 2023, and Oct. 31, 2025. 

They show Manitoba officials were contacted by more than 600 lobbyists representing more than 250 organizations and 50 lobbying firms.

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All told, these lobbyists reported 3,557 activities — defined for this analysis as one subject matter reported by one lobbyist in the activities portion of their registration. 

For every activity, the registry lists target contacts — public officials that the lobbyists contacted, or attempted to contact, about a particular subject. In all, lobbyists recorded more than 71,500 target contacts in the first two years of the NDP government.

To help illustrate what we know about who the lobbyists are and what topics were discussed, each square of this grid will represent 10 lobbying activities.

Graphic: Julia-Simone Rutgers / The Narwhal

Who are the lobbyists?

The office of the lobbyist registrar has a flowchart to help prospective lobbyists decide whether their efforts to get in touch with the government technically count as lobbying. If an individual is being paid to communicate with a public official to influence a decision or to set up a meeting with a third party, and they are not acting in their official capacity as a government employee, a diplomat, a representative of an Indigenous group or a charity — they are a lobbyist.

If they are lobbying on behalf of an organization they work for and spend (either individually or with a team) more than 100 hours per year lobbying, they are considered an in-house lobbyist. If they’re lobbying on behalf of a third party, they are considered a consultant.

The 100-hour rule is among the more outdated provisions in Manitoba’s legislation, Thomas said. Other jurisdictions have largely done away with time-based cutoffs, given they are largely reliant on the honour system and difficult to monitor. 

Graphic: Julia-Simone Rutgers / The Narwhal

The rules for in-house and consultant lobbyists are slightly different: consultants need to file registrations within 10 days of starting any lobbying work, while in-house staff have a representative, called the senior officer, who files a report approximately every six months detailing the activities of all of the organization’s lobbyists. 

About four out of every five lobbyists who got in touch with Manitoba public officials between October 2023 and 2025 were in-house lobbyists. These in-house representatives registered nearly 90 per cent of all lobbying in that time frame. 

Lobbyist backgrounds vary widely. Some are legal professionals, others have experience in politics or government relations. Some are experts in a particular field, or are staff of a non-profit. 

As is the trend across the country, there are a handful of former provincial politicians who took on lobbying roles after leaving government. Former Manitoba MLAs Cameron Friesen, Gord Mackintosh and Scott Fielding are each registered as consultant lobbyists and recorded a combined 50 activities. Under conflict of interest legislation, former cabinet members are not permitted to lobby about subjects they were previously involved with for 12 months.   

Which organizations have hired lobbyists?

The registry shows 266 organizations lobbied the provincial government in its first two years. Almost a third — 80 in total — were health-care or pharmaceutical organizations. About 20 were from the energy, oil and gas sector. There were also five mining organizations and two forestry companies. Other sectors represented among the lobbying organizations include agriculture, construction, finance, education, automotive manufacturing, housing and telecommunications.

Ten organizations — including four pharmaceutical companies, three professional associations, an international mining company and a national oil and gas company — conducted more than half of all lobbying activity in that time, with an average of 12 lobbyists and 188 activities each. 

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business, a non-profit advocating for the interests of small and medium-sized businesses nationwide, dominates the registry with more than 700 activities across its 14-person in-house lobby team. 

At the other end of the spectrum, nearly half of the organizations registered just one lobbyist, and about a third conducted just one lobbying activity.

Graphic: Julia-Simone Rutgers / The Narwhal

While laws are meant to ensure anyone can influence the decisions made by government officials, critics caution larger organizations are sometimes able to exert more influence over policymakers. 

“The lobbying community has some more active, more aggressive, more well-connected actors and institutions that have potentially disproportionate impact on the formulation of public policy, bills and regulations and budgets,” Thomas said. 

While more resources mean you “probably get listened to, it doesn’t necessarily guarantee that your advice is accepted,” he added. Instead, those larger organizations likely have more resources to monitor political developments in their area of interest, and more opportunities to informally meet with public officials at industry events. 

What are they lobbying about?

Over the first two years of the NDP government, lobbyists registered activities relating to 44 subject categories. Health care was by far the most common with over 1,000 registered activities — nearly 30 per cent of all activities in that time. 

The focus on health care is not surprising: the NDP campaigned on a promise to rebuild the provincial health-care system and has spent the largest portion of its last two budgets within the health, seniors and long-term care department.

Energy and economic development were the next-most popular subjects with 199 activities each, followed by the environment at 152.

Energy, oil and gas and other resource extraction companies made up more than half of energy-related activities, one-tenth of economic development activities and one-third of environmental activities. 

Graphic: Julia-Simone Rutgers / The Narwhal

TransCanada Pipelines, Enbridge, Imperial Oil, South Bow Services, the Canadian Fuels Association and the Explorers and Producers Association of Canada, are particularly well represented among these subjects, registering a combined 156 activities. 

Renewable energy and electrification-focused organizations, including the Canadian Renewable Energy Association, hydrogen and helium producers, sustainable fuel organizations and electric vehicle infrastructure companies, combined for 43 activities in the same subject categories.

Data shows lobbyists took a variety of strategic approaches. 

Feisal Somji, president and chief executive officer of Sio Silica, centre, and Brent Bullen, chief operating officer and director, centre right, attend a Clean Environment Commission hearing near Springfield, Man., in 2023. Their company’s lobbying efforts have sparked a review into Manitoba’s lobbying regulations. Photo: John Woods / Winnipeg Free Press

Some more prolific organizations spread their lobbying across topics and departments — the Canadian Federation of Independent Business registered 25 different subject matters, Brazil-based mining company Vale, which ran one of Manitoba’s largest nickel mining operations for several decades and was once the largest employer in the northern city of Thompson, lobbied 21 subjects. 

Other groups appeared to focus their efforts on a single subject. The Canadian Medical Association, for example, conducted 259 activities (the second most by a single organization) focused exclusively on health, while Enbridge’s 49 activities all focused on energy.

Who is being lobbied?

Lobbyists targeted 356 public officials across approximately 120 government departments and agencies during the two-year time period.  

Staff in the health, seniors and long-term care department were targeted most often, followed by the premier’s office, then the department of Finance, the department of Business, Mining and Trade and the Environment department. 

When reaching out to departmental staff, lobbyists tend to target the relevant minister, at an average 84 per cent of the requests. Other staffers that tend to be targeted include deputy and assistant deputy ministers, chiefs of staff and program directors. The economic development and health departments saw the largest proportion of activities targeting non-ministerial staff.

Aside from government departments, lobbyists targeted staff at public agencies and Crown corporations, such as Manitoba Hydro and the Hydro-Electric Board, the Manitoba Housing and Renewal Corporation and the Securities Commission. 

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About 60 per cent of target outreach was aimed at MLA offices, regardless of political party. Each office received approximately 800 requests in the two-year period, with the exception of Tuxedo and Transcona, with 628 and 303 requests respectively. The vast majority of these MLA requests — 92 per cent — were made by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. 

What do lobbyists want out of it?

The idea behind a transparent registry is to understand how some corporations or organizations are able to influence government decisions in their favour. To understand what impact organizations have, it’s important to know what they hope to gain.

In Manitoba, lobbyists are able to choose one or more of six pre-written “outcomes” in their filings. There’s also room to further describe activities, though the amount of additional detail varies widely.

Here’s what we do know: more than half of activities seek to “influence the development, amendment or termination of a program or policy”; one-quarter aim to “influence the development of a legislative proposal.”

Additional outcomes include setting up meetings between public officials and other people, influencing the making or amending of regulations, shaping the content, passage or defeat of bills in the legislature and, finally, influencing the awarding of a grant or other financial benefit. 

Graphic: Julia-Simone Rutgers / The Narwhal

Lobbyists are expected to outline any “legislative proposal, bill, resolution, regulation, program, policy, contract or financial benefit” relevant to their activities, but not every organization does so consistently. 

Vale Canada, for example, registered 122 activities over the two-year period, all aimed at influencing a program, policy, bill or resolution. For all but 10, the “detail” section simply reads: “to accelerate development of critical minerals.” 

By contrast, the Explorers and Producers Association, an oil and gas industry group, notes its activities advocate for “policy, fiscal and royalty provisions that ensure Manitoba remains a competitive and attractive destination for investment” as the province reviews its drilling incentive program and related royalty regimes.

There’s also no requirement to outline any outcomes that came as a result of the lobbying efforts. For example, organizations looking to secure funding are not required to report whether or not it was provided. There is a section in the registry for organizations to list any government funding they receive, but they are not required to list when it was allocated, or under which programs. 

This is another area where Thomas believes the registry can be strengthened.

“You need to make it more demanding on lobbyists to indicate who they’re lobbying and the subject matter beyond glittering generalities,” he said. 

How else could the registry be improved?

There’s a balance to be struck when it comes to reporting requirements for lobbyists, Thomas explained. 

Stringent and demanding rules provide more transparency for the public, but can create barriers for smaller organizations with fewer resources.

“Not all lobbyists have the same political clout. If you write rules that are too burdensome and demanding, non-profits will find them difficult to comply with and spend too much time filling in forms, recording every interaction they have with the government,” Thomas said.

An ideal set of regulations, he explained, would have “reporting requirements proportional to the size and scope of the organization that’s interacting with government officials.” Legislation to this effect is currently being developed at the federal level. 

For lobbyists that don’t comply with the rules, Thomas said the legislation needs a stronger enforcement mechanism. As it stands, the lobbyists registrar does not have its own enforcement power, and violations of the act must be handled by police. The penalty for a violation is a fine of up to $25,000, but the office of the lobbyists registrar said in an email it is not aware of any prosecutions or penalties having been applied to date.

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Thomas suggests tiered administrative penalties and the possibility of a temporary lobbying ban — similar to the penalty structure under British Columbia’s laws — would give the province more opportunity for effective enforcement. 

Every year, the lobbyist registrar should provide an annual report — as is the case at the federal level and in other provinces — summarizing trends and compliance, he added. In Manitoba, the lobbyist registrar also serves as the ethics commissioner. Since 2023, the ethics commissioner’s annual report has included a short section related to lobbying.

Finally, Thomas believes the province should draft a code of conduct to clarify the “legal and ethical norms of lobbying” and help promote trust between the lobbying community and the public. 

All of these changes, Thomas said, could be achieved without an inquiry into one particular scandal. But they’re adjustments he hopes will come sooner than later.

“You want to build a made-in-Manitoba solution,” Thomas said. “But we’re not there yet.” 

Julia-Simone Rutgers is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.

Methodology+

The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press created an independent database of registered lobbying activities between Oct. 1, 2023, and Oct. 31, 2025, including lobbyist names and firms, lobbying organizations, subject matter details, lobbying dates, intended outcomes and target contacts, as entered in the provincial registry. Each individual subject matter recorded in a registration was treated as a separate data point, for a total of 3,557 activities. These activities were analyzed for trends in lobbyist names and organizations, subject matters, intended outcomes and target contacts.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Cheryl Sinclair has been here before. Not this room, exactly — a conference room at Winnipeg’s Club Regent hotel — but it’s not the first time the Tyndall, Man., resident has shown up to a Sio Silica information session looking for answers.

“My concern is drilling into the aquifer, taking out sand and putting filtered water back in,” she says in an interview. “Can Sio Silica guarantee that the ground, the aquifer, will not be contaminated?”

On a Monday evening in mid-November, Sinclair is among the dozens of guests milling around at an open house hosted by the Alberta-based mining company that has spent the last decade devising a plan to extract silica sand from a southern Manitoba aquifer that serves more than 120,000 households.

The company has set up a trove of polished material: glossy handouts touting the economic benefits of the mine, posterboards outlining technical details about the proposed — and as yet unproven — airlift extraction method and its potential impacts on the aquifer, disposable water bottles wrapped in Sio Silica branding. A handful of engineers are stationed throughout the room to answer questions; some attendees hold hand-painted signs declaring their support for the project and the “#Jobs” it hopes to create; Churchill, the polar bear mascot for Winnipeg’s professional basketball team, the Sea Bears, mingles with attendees, helping promote an entry draw for game tickets.

Citizens attended an open house in November 2025 to learn about Sio Silica’s updated proposals for its sand mine southeast of Winnipeg. The company was denied an environmental licence to operate the mine in 2024. Now, it is applying again, this time with a revised plan that the company says will have a lower environmental impact. Photos: Svjetlana Mlinarevic / The Carillon

“From my perspective, there’s an overwhelming amount of support,” Sio Silica president and East St. Paul Mayor Carla Devlin says, sitting in a small room across the hall from the event, with her private security guard at the door.

“I think that a lot of people that had questions got answers, and I think that we probably changed some minds and corrected some misinformation.” 

This is Sio Silica’s second crack at convincing the government, and the community, to approve its controversy-laden mine. 

The company believes it’s found a uniquely high-quality sand deposit that’s already low in iron — a characteristic needed for technical and industrial applications like touch-screen glass, solar panels and aerospace technology. That trait makes the sand easier and cheaper to process without the need for chemical treatments, the company says. Once purified, Sio Silica says the sand can be used to make lithium-ion batteries, fibre optics, medical glass and other advanced technologies.

“It’s like Frank’s hot sauce,” Devlin says.

Sio Silica is staging a comeback — with a push for First Nations support

The proposal has been shot down once before, when a newly elected NDP government axed the company’s environmental licence application in February 2024. The decision was one of the first major acts for the government, and bucked a years-long trend wherein Manitoba’s environmental licensing process was all but a formality. For residents of Springfield, Anola, Vivian and other communities served by the aquifer, that rejection was a hard-fought victory after years of protests, petitions, environmental hearings and local council debates.

Sio Silica has remained convinced its project has merit. In late October, more than a year and a half after the first environmental licence was denied, the company submitted a modified application — starting the licensing process from scratch. 

“I was angry,” Sinclair says of the new application. “It’s like we’ve got to go back to the battlefield and start protesting again.”

Carla Devlin, who is both the president of Sio Silica and the mayor of a rural community near the company’s proposed mine, poses with a basketball mascot during a November 2025 open house regarding Sio Silica’s updated plans. Devlin says there’s “an overwhelming amount of support” for the mine. Photo: Svjetlana Mlinarevic / The Carillon

Devlin says the revised application was designed to show Sio Silica is listening to the community’s concerns. The biggest change is a significant reduction in the amount of sand the company plans to extract.

The original Vivian Sands project proposed extracting 1.36 million tonnes from more than 460 wells each year, with the wells arranged in clusters of seven. 

The new application, for the project now called “SiMBA,” proposes taking 100,000 tonnes in the first year and ramping up to a maximum of 500,000 tonnes by the fourth year. The company is now proposing to drill just 25 wells in Year 1 and scale up to 167 wells annually, this time in clusters of up to five. 

The overall footprint of the mine is projected to shrink, too. Sio Silica has access to more than 90,000 hectares of mineral claims across southern Manitoba, but plans to mine about 350 hectares in its first four years (a 45 per cent reduction from the original proposal) and 2,764 hectares over the lifetime of the project (a 66 per cent reduction). 

“We needed to show a gradual approach to build the trust and confidence,” Devlin says.

Sio Silica has more than 400 mineral claims totalling over 1,000 square kilometres in central and southern Manitoba — more than twice the area of Winnipeg. Map: Julia-Simone Rutgers / The Narwhal & Winnipeg Free Press

The company also plans to add filtering to its water treatment plan, to test its groundwater treatment process to “ensure compliance with provisions in an Environment Act licence,” and to draft plans to handle resident complaints and respond to any groundwater changes.

Not everyone is convinced. Katharina Stieffenhofer, a Winnipeg resident who has followed the company’s plans for years, says she still has “grave concerns” about the proposal.

“I’m concerned about the very likely injury — damage — to the aquifer, the drinking water, the landscape, the air, the roadways, and how it will impact the well-being and quality of life of Manitobans,” Stieffenhofer says.

“I’m also really concerned about their, shall we call it, public relations.”

Stieffenhofer says Sio Silica has been “greenwashing” its proposal.

“Initially they were going to use the silica sand for fracking. Then all of a sudden, we’re not doing that anymore, now it’s going to be all wonderful green economy, we’re going to make solar panels. Now this latest version is going to be for fibre optics for data because that’s the newest thing,” she says, referring to the way the company has marketed the aquifer sand.

“Who is really going to profit from this? I would say it’s not the people of Manitoba.”

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In its final report, the Clean Environment Commission noted Sio Silica’s open houses and community consultation efforts were “hampered” by a lack of detail about the mining plan. The commission recommended “more effective two-way communication” with affected communities and suggested the province require Sio Silica to strike a local advisory committee where residents can weigh in on the project. 

Devlin acknowledges Sio Silica’s community engagement hasn’t been perfect, but going forward the company wants to be “an open book,” including “having community involved in [environmental oversight] committees.”  

Stieffenhofer wants to see government-funded, independent analysis of the proposed extraction method to mitigate the risks to the drinking water source.

“The silica sand acts as the kidneys and the liver. It filters our water, it has a function, and you take that away — what are we going to be left with, with 15 billion tonnes of silica sand missing?”

Devlin says the company has conducted four years of environmental monitoring that shows “no adverse effect to the aquifer, no ground movement.” 

The company has partnered with Aquatic Life, a Manitoba tech company developing groundwater monitoring tools, to provide realtime data about the Sandilands aquifer straight to community members and government.

It also plans to work with a University of Manitoba hydrology professor and PhD students to research and monitor the aquifer. Devlin says Sio Silica plans to be a “big contributor to the university” by committing research and development funding. 

Manitoba has shown it’s not completely opposed to silica sand mining. The same week it denied Sio Silica’s Environment Act licence, it approved another mining company’s plan to dig for sand in the Wapinigow region on the eastern side of the province.

In November, a third company, Silex Resources, submitted an application to mine for sand in a saline portion of the aquifer west of the Red River.

Former Manitoba premier Heather Stefanson was found to have violated the province’s ethics laws when she attempted to push through an environmental licence for the Sio Silica sand mine in the days after her Progressive Conservatives lost the 2023 provincial election. Photo: Malak Abas / Winnipeg Free Press

But Sio Silica’s project has been mired by political scandal: municipal council debates in Springfield unravelled to the point RCMP were called and the company’s lawyers threatened action against councillors; allegations that members of the former Progressive Conservative government pressured politicians to approve the project during the post-election transition period sparked a first-of-its-kind ethics investigation that ended with fines for the former premier and two MLAs. Two communities — Brokenhead Ojibway Nation and Springfield — have voted to reject the mine in referendums. 

Premier Wab Kinew has said the backroom political manoeuvring has left an air “of stink” around Sio Silica’s proposal, which needs clearing up before any further steps can be taken.

After nearly a decade in the province, Sio Silica isn’t ready to back away. In fact, Devlin is more optimistic than ever the project meets Manitoba’s needs.

“We check off all the boxes of a national interest project,” Devlin says, referring to the Carney government’s economic buzzword. “Everything written in [Manitoba’s] critical mineral strategy is Sio Silica. Everything the province is saying is everything that we offer, so I’m very optimistic we can move this province forward, build out our economy and boom like other provinces have.”

For residents, it means their years-long fight to protect the aquifer isn’t over either. 

The fate of Sio Silica’s mine is yet to be decided. Public comments closed Dec. 1, and the technical advisory committee will review the application and pose questions to the company before a final licensing decision is made. 

While the environment department weighs the risks and rewards of the sand mine, The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press look back on Sio Silica’s tumultuous time in Manitoba. 

Sio Silica: the first 10 years

2015

• Oct. 26, 2015 — 1993502 Alberta Ltd. stakes its first claims in southern Manitoba Feisal Somji, Sio Silica’s CEO, began looking for sand deposits, hoping to find a source of proppant — a gritty material used to hold open fractures in the ground for oil extraction — to sell to the oil and gas industry for fracking, when he arrived in Manitoba. Under the banner of three numbered Alberta companies, the Calgarian mining executive started staking claims.“A friend of mine here in Steinbach said to me: ‘There is sand underground,’ ” Somji would later say. “That was the start of our hunt for the sand here.”

2016

• Sept. 29 — Drilling begins Drilling work continued until November 2018. In 2016, the company staked more than 400 claims across 98,000 hectares.

2017

• ‘Mystery’ mineral makes headlines Miners continued to scour the region, and residents began to take notice. Local headlines swirled with speculation about the “mystery” mineral deep in the rural farmland. It was rumoured to be gold, diamonds or lithium.The numbered companies were renamed HD Minerals and CanWhite Sands.

2018

• Drill, baby, drill With communications support from Winnipeg-based land-use planning firm Landmark Planning & Design, HD Minerals began working with landowners to conduct exploratory drilling. Between 2016 and 2019, the company shelled out a total of $45,000 to landowners who allowed boreholes to be drilled on their properties.Representatives for Landmark refused to say what they were looking for.Somji later told the Canadian Mining Journal, the company sought to secure the mineral rights to the entire Carman sand deposit.By 2019, the company had staked more than 500 mining claims covering more than 117,000 hectares.

2019

• April 9–11 — The big reveal HD Minerals held its first series of public information sessions in La Broquerie, Anola and Richer, where it revealed it planned to mine silica sand from an aquifer 60 metres below ground.
• April–December — A change of plans Chief operating officer Brent Bullen joined the project in April and began assessing the quality and potential of the sand. He noticed the sand is higher purity than expected, and shifted focus to high-tech applications. Meanwhile, the company’s engineers began working on a method to extract sand from the aquifer.

2020

• May 1 — Patent-pending CanWhite submitted a patent application for its unique airlift mining method, which it said would effectively vacuum sand and water out of the aquifer through wells. 
• June — The pushback begins A group of residents, concerned the plan could damage their source of drinking water, formed an organization called Our Line in the Sand to oppose the project, starting with a protest by one of CanWhite’s properties near Anola. The group called for an in-person open house and for the province to hold Clean Environment Commission hearings to review the project.
• June 17 — A pitch to council Winnipeg based urban-planning firm Richard + Wintrup, on behalf of CanWhite Sands, made a conditional use application to Springfield’s municipal council to build a sand processing facility near Vivian.
• July 2 — CanWhite applies for an Environment Act licence for its sand processing facility The company split its proposal in two: one licence for the processing facility, and another for the mining. Residents criticized this approach, arguing it failed to consider the cumulative impacts of the mine.

Manitoba Liberal MLA and health critic Jon Gerrard speaks to media outside the provincial legislature in August 2020. Gerrard called for more review and oversight of the Sio Silica sand mining project. Photo: Jesse Boily / Winnipeg Free Press

Dennis LeNeveu, a concerned resident, shows a sample of shale to media outside the Manitoba legislature during an event calling for increased oversight of the sand mine. Photo: Jesse Boily / Winnipeg Free Press

• Aug. 18–Sept. 28 — An appeal to Ottawa Community groups and First Nations, including Brokenhead Ojibway Nation, the Manitoba Métis Federation and citizen group What the Frack Manitoba, wrote to Canada’s impact assessment agency seeking a federal review of the mine.
• Oct. 8 — Petitioning against the project Our Line in the Sand presented a petition with more than 1,400 signatures to the Manitoba legislature, calling for a more independent and comprehensive environmental review.

2021

• Consultation and more consultation CanWhite Sands spent the year focused on community consultations. The company held meetings with representatives for the municipalities of Tache, Beausejour, Hanover, Ste. Anne, La Broquerie, Reynolds, Brokenhead and Springfield. On June 14, CanWhite presented the project to a “small group of leaders” from Brokenhead, with provincial representatives present.
• July 23 — CanWhite applied for an Environment Act licence for the sand extraction process.
• Nov. 15 — Manitoba’s environment minister directed the Clean Environment Commission to conduct a review of CanWhite’s mining proposal In her letter to Somji, then-environment minister Sarah Guillemard cited both “significant public interest” in the project and “the need for a thorough technical review” as reasons. 
• Dec. 7 — Ottawa says no The Impact Assessment Agency declined to conduct a review, deferring to the provincial licensing process.
• Dec. 16 — CanWhite granted an environmental licence for its sand processing facility, to be built near Vivian Opponents raised concern over the licence being granted while the mining process has been referred to the Clean Environment Commission for review. 

2022

• Jan. 1 — The rebrand CanWhite Sands rebranded as Sio Silica after the original name performed poorly in brand testing.
• May 20 — The municipality is asked to change its rules Richard + Wintrup, on behalf of Sio Silica, asked Springfield council to amend its bylaws to make it easier for the company to build its processing facility.
• June 23–29 — The municipality says no Springfield council voted against amending its bylaws.Richard + Wintrup appealed the decision to the Municipal Board, a quasi-judicial provincial body that settles disputes over property assessment and planning decisions.
• June 24 — Manitoba heavyweight joins the board David Filmon, a prominent Manitoba lawyer and son of former Progressive Conservative premier Gary Filmon, was appointed to Sio Silica’s board of directors.
• Oct. 5–22 — Provincial lobbying kicks off Jeremy Sawatzy, a consulting lobbyist, registered to arrange meetings with government representatives in the economic development, natural resources and environment branches on behalf of Sio Silica. 
• Oct. 19, 20, 28 — The bylaw debacle heats up Springfield council and Sio Silica appeared before the Municipal Board for a hearing about Richard + Wintrup’s proposed zoning amendment.Legislative changes meant the board had the power to overrule Springfield council and force the municipality to enter a deal with Sio Silica.

An organizer with Our Line in the Sand points to a photo of uncovered sand piles in Anola, Man. The group has protested Sio Silica’s proposed sand mine, citing concerns the project could damage their source of drinking water. Photo: Mikaela MacKenzie / Winnipeg Free Press

2023

• Jan. 17 — The solar panel pitch Somji and Peter Fath, CEO of German solar panel company RCT Solutions, met with Manitoba cabinet members to propose a $3-billion solar panel plant. Fath said Manitoba’s silica deposit and low-cost hydroelectricity make it “a really good place for solar manufacturing.” Fath said the plant could create 8,000 jobs when built. He noted he had investors with “deep pockets” ready to support the project, but “they won’t wait forever” for regulatory approval.
• February — Deal made Sio Silica and RCT Solutions signed an agreement to partner on the development of a solar panel manufacturing plant, which would exclusively use sand from Sio Silica’s mine.
• Feb. 27–March 15 — The Clean Environment Commission hearings Hearings took place over 12 days in Steinbach, Anola and Beausejour. The panel heard testimony from more than 70 people, including experts, representatives for Sio Silica and members of the public. The panel also received nearly 300 written submissions. The hearings focused on technical aspects of the project, including its potential impacts on the integrity of the aquifer and risks to water quality.

Sio Silica CEO Feisal Somji, centre, attends a Clean Environment Commission hearing in Steinbach, Man., on March 6, 2023. The hearings extended over 12 days and visited Anola and Beausejour in addition to Steinbach. Photo: John Woods / Winnipeg Free Press

Jay Doering, then-commissioner of the Manitoba Clean Environment Commission, speaks during a Sio Silica sand mine hearing on March 6, 2023, in Steinbach, Man. Photo: John Woods / Winnipeg Free Press

• March 8 — Council overruled The Municipal Board decided in favour of Richard + Wintrup and Sio Silica, ordering Springfield’s municipal council to amend its zoning bylaws and enter into a development agreement with the company.
• May 8 — New sponsorship deal Sio Silica announced it would sponsor the upcoming Winnipeg Blue Bombers training camp.
• June 13–19 — Debate takes chaotic turn Springfield council held several off-the-record meetings to debate the development agreement. Residents protested, arguing the municipality should have followed the normal procedure of public hearings and council debate. At one meeting, the mayor called RCMP to the community hall; in the next, more than 100 residents were locked out of the building. Councillors Andy Kuczynski and Mark Miller voted against the proposed development agreement, resulting in a tie. The agreement was referred back to the municipal board.

Councillors Mark Miller and Andy Kuczynski voted against approving a development agreement for Sio Silica’s sand mine at a Springfield council meeting in June 2023. Photo: Jura McIlraith / The Carillon

• June 20 — More economic muscle on board Michael Pyle, CEO of the Exchange Income Corporation and then-chair of the Winnipeg Football Club, the Manitoba First Fund and the Business Council of Manitoba, was appointed to Sio Silica’s board of directors. 
• June 23 — The Clean Environment Commission releases its final report The commission’s report showed concern the novel mining practice of airlifting sand from the aquifer could pose a risk to the region’s groundwater. The report made eight recommendations to the province aimed at gaining a better scientific understanding of the mine’s risks and strengthening project oversight before a licence is issued.Kevin Klein, Progressive Conservative environment minister at the time, presented the report to the public, pledging his office would review the proposal in light of the recommendations, adding “the process will take as long as the process needs to take.”
• July 26 — Manitoba makes a deal for solar panel production Manitoba’s mining minister at the time, Jeff Wharton, signed a memorandum of understanding with RCT Solutions, agreeing to support Fath in developing the solar glass manufacturing facility. 
• Aug. 11 — A letter from the company lawyers Springfield councillors Kuczynski and Miller received a letter from lawyers at MLT Aikins on behalf of Sio Silica, stating the company is “considering an action for misfeasance in public office.”“But for Councillors’ Miller and Kuczynski’s deliberate and bad-faith attempt to disrupt the land-use planning process, the development agreement would undoubtedly have been approved months ago,” the letter said.
• Aug. 13–Sept. 18 — Springfield residents vote no to Sio Kuczynski and Miller commissioned a phone-in referendum regarding the proposed mine. The survey received approximately 5,000 responses, with about 95 per cent voting “no.” 
• Sept. 15 — Manitoba environmental approvals branch shares a draft environmental licence with Sio Silica In the months following the environment commission hearing, Sio Silica and the environment department continued working toward licensing the mining proposal. In response to the commission’s recommendations, the draft licence is said to have included a staged approach that would “address any remaining environmental and technical concerns the government may have had with the commercial extraction process, before any commercial extraction actually occurred.”
• Oct. 3 — Election day New Democratic Party Leader Wab Kinew was elected premier, ending seven years of Progressive Conservative governance in the province.The government entered a caretaker period to allow for the changeover.
• Oct. 4–5 — Licensing pressure David Filmon contacted Cliff Cullen, then-Progressive Conservative deputy premier and head of the economic development, investment and trade department under the previous government, to follow up on the status of Sio Silica’s mining licence. Texts showed Filmon and Sio Silica were expecting a licence to be signed in the coming days.

Text messages sent by proponents of Sio Silica’s mine in the days following the NDP’s election victory reveal an urgent desire for an environmental licence to be finalized. “Obviously a lot of anxiety on our end,” Sio Silica board member David Filmon wrote to the outgoing Progressive Conservative deputy premier. Illustration: Shawn Parkinson / The Narwhal

• Oct. 6 — Talks ramp up during the transition Department staff and representatives from both parties held multiple meetings to discuss the project.An ethics commission investigation found some provincial staff claimed the licence had already been signed, while members of the Sio Silica team appeared to expect a licensing decision that day.Department staff discussed options to move forward with the licence during the transition period.

Writing to a Sio Silica board member three days after Manitoba’s provincial election, outgoing Progressive Conservative deputy premier Cliff Cullen wrote that he felt “sick” after learning the NDP’s election victory might result in a different outcome for Sio Silica’s environmental licence. Illustration: Shawn Parkinson / The Narwhal

Incoming political staff were also targeted with a lobbying effort on behalf of Sio Silica immediately following the provincial election. Illustration: Shawn Parkinson / The Narwhal

• Oct. 12 — Wharton urges the outgoing environment minister and deputy minister to approve Sio Silica’s Environment Act licence. Both refuse.
• Oct. 13 — Sio Silica reaches out to Peguis First Nation Sio Silica signed a memorandum of understanding with Peguis First Nation to conduct environmental monitoring of its mining. The status of that agreement is currently uncertain.
• Oct. 18 — Premier Wab Kinew and his cabinet are sworn in, marking the end of the caretaker period
• In the following months, several interdepartmental meetings took place to brief ministers on the project and plan next steps in licensing. Departmental staff calendars obtained through freedom of information requests showed at least a dozen such meetings between Oct. 24, 2023 and Feb.16, 2024.
• Nov. 13 — Sio Silica goes public through a merger with Pyrophyte Acquisitions, a shell company headquartered in the Cayman Islands Through the public offering, valued at $780 million, details about the company’s financial position and business deals — including signed agreements to sell sand to two semiconductor manufacturers in China — came to light.
• Nov. 20 — Pitching to the new government Sio Silica representatives presented the mine project to Ian Bushie, then-minister of municipal and northern relations and Indigenous economic development, and Jamie Moses, then-minister of economic development, investment, trade and natural resources

2024

• Jan. 12 — MLA requests an ethics investigation MLA Mike Moyes, a legislative assistant in the Environment department, formally requested Manitoba’s ethics commissioner investigate the former government’s efforts to approve Sio Silica’s environment licence during the caretaker period.

Flanked by fellow MLAs, Manitoba NDP caucus chair Mike Moyes announces he has filed two formal ethics complaints over Progressive Conservative Leader Heather Stefanson’s and MLA Jeff Wharton’s attempts to push through the Sio Silica project after losing the 2023 provincial election. Photo: Mike Deal / Winnipeg Free Press

• Feb. 16 — Sio Silica’s extraction licence rejected “We have a responsibility to ensure we are not endangering Manitobans’ drinking water,” then-environment minister Tracy Schmidt said. “This proposal failed to adequately consider long-term impacts including potential aquifer collapse. That’s why we made the decision to not issue a licence for the Vivian sand extraction project.”In a statement, Sio Silica claimed the company was “working with Peguis Special Projects and Consultation to conduct environmental monitoring” and had “entered into discussions with Broken Head Ojibway Nation for the location of advanced manufacturing facilities on their lands.”

Premier Wab Kinew shakes hands on Feb. 16, 2024, after announcing that his government would not issue an environmental licence for Sio Silica’s sand mine. Photo: Mike Deal / Winnipeg Free Press

Community members applaud after hearing Manitoba’s NDP government announce that the province has decided not to issue an environmental licence for the Vivian sand extraction project. Photo: Mike Deal / Winnipeg Free Press

• Feb. 16 — Alberta lobbyist approaches the province Hal Danchilla, a conservative lobbyist from Alberta, registered to lobby Wab Kinew and Tracy Schmidt on behalf of Sio Silica.
• May 21 — Sio sponsors mining lobby day The Manitoba Prospectors and Developers Association hosted its Lobby Day at the legislature. Sio Silica was a premium sponsor of the event. Each MLA was presented with a “custom-made silica sand vial.”
• May 27 — From councillor to a lobbyist Shandy Walls formally registered as a lobbyist for Sio Silica. According to the lobbying registry, she had been lobbying on behalf of the company since May 2021, though no details of her lobbying were recorded. Walls is founder of the Springfield Chamber of Commerce, where Sio Silica is a member, and served on council from 2014 to 2018.
• June — Silicon makes the critical mineral list Canada released an updated critical mineral list with three new minerals, one of which is silicon metal, a potential application of silica sand. According to emails obtained through a freedom of information request, the Manitoba Prospectors and Developers Association had requested the federal government add silica sand to the list.
• June 29 — East St. Paul Mayor Carla Devlin is appointed vice-president of Sio Silica.
• July 21 — Sio approaches Brokenhead Sio Silica held a “major project meeting” with the newly elected chief and council.
• November–December — Company looks for First Nations’ support Sio Silica held consultations with several First Nations, focusing in particular on Brokenhead. At a series of roundtable sessions in November, members of the First Nation were presented an equity-sharing opportunity that would be valued at approximately $10 million per year.Sio Silica also held meetings with other Treaty One Nations, a council made up of leadership from seven southern Manitoba First Nations, including Brokenhead, Peguis, Roseau River Anishinabe and Long Plain First Nations.

2025

• Feb. 3 — Devlin is appointed president of Sio Silica
• March — Sio seizes ‘Elbows Up’ moment In the lead up to Canada’s federal election on March 9, sovereignty and economic security became dominant themes.Sio Silica, in the meantime, continued to meet with local officials, including Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham, the mayors of Rockwood municipality and Steinbach and with Arctic Gateway Group, the consortium that owns the Port of Churchill. The company discussed the possibility of shipping sand through the port. 
• May 7 — Sio Silica goes stateside Sio Silica registered as a lobbyist in North Dakota. In a November interview, Devlin said the company is considering building a beneficiation facility stateside.
• May 13–14 — National security a new market Sio Silica CEO Feisal Somji spoke at the Critical Minerals Institute Summit IV in Toronto. His talk was titled “The Important Role of Silica in North American National Security and How Canada Can Take a Leading Role.”
• May 21 — Premier, MLAs found guilty of ethics law breach Then-ethics commissioner Jeffrey Schnoor released a 100-page report recommending fines totalling $40,000 for former premier Heather Stefanson and MLAs Cliff Cullen and Jeff Wharton, finding they acted improperly in attempting to secure a licence for Sio Silica during the caretaker period.

NDP Premier Wab Kinew speaks in Manitoba’s legislative chamber on May 22, 2025 — the day after the province’s ethics commissioner released a ruling that Progressive Conservative MLAs and the former premier acted improperly when they tried to advance Sio Silica’s mining proposal. Photo: Ruth Bonneville / Winnipeg Free Press

Manitoba Progressive Conservative MLA Jeff Wharton apologizes after being found to have violated the province’s ethics rules in his efforts to support the Sio Silica sand mine. Photo: Ruth Bonneville / Winnipeg Free Press

• May 28 — A new marketing campaign Sio launched a new marketing campaign — including radio advertisements, billboards and newspaper advertising — with the slogan “15 billion tonnes of opportunity. Stay in Manitoba. Build the Future.”
• Aug. 1–8 — Brokenhead votes ‘no’ Brokenhead, thought to be the “closest First Nation” to the project, held a referendum to decide whether to enter a revenue-sharing deal with Sio Silica. The community rejected Sio’s proposal by a vote of 181-129.
• Aug. 25 — Meetings in North Dakota Carla Devlin met with North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer, who serves on the senate environment and public works committee, as well as the armed services committee.
• Aug. 28 — Reinforcing national security narrative Somji spoke as a part of a panel from the Critical Minerals Institute Masterclass series titled: “Silicon’s Strategic Trajectory — From High-Purity Silica to Semiconductors & National Security.”
• Oct. 7 — Fines issued The Manitoba government voted to impose fines on Heather Stefanson ($18,000), Cliff Cullen ($12,000) and Jeff Wharton ($10,000), as per the recommendations in the ethics commissioner’s report. Fines were fully paid by Nov. 4.
• Oct. 28 — A new licence application Sio Silica filed a second Environment Act licence application for its mining process. It was originally filed Aug. 18, but only made publicly available in late October. The revised project proposed reductions in the number of wells drilled, the quantity of sand extracted each year and overall footprint of the mine, starting with 25 wells and 100,000 tonnes removed across about 0.65 square kilometres in the first year.
• Oct. 31 — Long Plain First Nation enters scene Sio Silica signed a memorandum of understanding with Long Plain First Nation to conduct an environmental review of the project.The review is not an endorsement of the project, Chief David Meeches told the CBC, adding “if it is such that it is negative, we will walk away.”
• Nov. 24 — New-look SiMBA project unveiled Sio Silica hosted an open house in Winnipeg for its revised project application.
• Dec. 1 — Licence application in provincial hands The public comment period for the new environment licence application closed.

Julia-Simone Rutgers is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.

Updated Dec. 12, 2025 at 4:50 p.m. CT: This article originally stated consulting lobbyist Jeremy Sawatzy met with government officials on behalf of Sio Silica. While he did register to arrange meetings with those officials on behalf of the company, no meetings ultimately took place. It was also updated to correct a line describing Aquatic Life as a startup company.

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