If we're finally willing to invest in Churchill, let's build the port the North actually needs — one that serves communities in need, not just the commodities passing through. Photo by Handout/ Churchill Gateway Development Corp

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Premier Wab Kinew of Manitoba keeps talking about making the port of Churchill a launchpad for critical minerals, grain and Arctic exports — a shipping gateway that in the face of unjustified U.S. tariffs will help Canada compete on the world stage. He recently floated a $70-to-$80-billion price tag for an offshore liquefied natural gas terminal.

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But the premier is not describing a plan built on a solid analytic foundation. He’s making a seductive pitch wrapped in the language of sovereignty and economic nationalism. It’s a common pitch these days among federal and provincial leaders. But even in turbulent Trump times reaching for the biggest possible outcome isn’t always wise; sometimes, it’s a gamble.

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Churchill isn’t Vancouver or Montreal. The port has never turned a profit without Ottawa covering the gap, and the premier downplays the fact that there’s no pipeline in place to feed LNG exports, nor even a plan for one. There’s no confirmed investor and a pipeline from Alberta to Churchill is not on the prime minister’s list of major projects. By Kinew’s own admission, no Indigenous communities have yet bought into his vision.

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For all the fanfare given it, the premier’s Churchill project remains, in the words of an Arctic Research Foundation report, only “likely feasible.” But “likely feasible” is hardly a green light. And “feasible” is a long way from “profitable” or “economic.” Many questions remain. The premier’s own report suggests that extending the shipping season hinges on Ottawa’s commitment to fund a polar-class icebreaker, which costs between $280 and $410 million.

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Over the decades, the Port of Churchill’s recurring pattern has been: ownership changes, government commitments, federal subsidies and persistent struggles. Even a fleet of icebreakers seems unlikely to provide a happy ending to this latest chapter in a cycle of repeated policy ambitions that fail to come to fruition.

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Manitoba’s own feasibility studies conclude that final approval for the port’s expansion depends on unresolved project details, missing baseline environmental data, and consultation requirements yet to be met — future work the report itself flags as essential before regulators could, in theory, sign off. In other words, the studies being paraded as proof of feasibility are, by their own admission, just a starting point.

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Does Premier Kinew or Prime Minister Carney intend to invoke the Building Canada Act, treating Indigenous rights, environmental obligations and consultation requirements as a procedural formality to be worked around rather than genuinely addressed? Press releases make expanding the port sound beguilingly simple, but scores of unanswered questions remain.

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For example, how does a port that has never turned a profit suddenly do that? And on what timeline, if any? Will dredging the harbour entrance be necessary to accommodate larger tankers? Does the provincial government plan to ask Ottawa to expand search-and-rescue capacity in the Canadian Coast Guard to match increased vessel traffic? How will beluga whale populations be monitored and harm to them reduced? Can a notoriously challenging rail line built on a floodplain and destabilized by permafrost really be trusted as the port’s only supply line? And, above all, what will stop Churchill from becoming another Nanisivik — Stephen Harper’s abandoned Arctic naval facility, now a monument to unfulfilled Arctic ambition?