Ottawa gives N.W.T. $245M for infrastructure

The Northwest Territories will be receiving $245 million over seven years from the federal government to help build bridges, airports and water systems.

The funding agreement was signed in Yellowknife Thursday by territorial officials and Calgary MP Diane Ablonczy, the secretary of state for small business and tourism, acting on behalf of Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon.

The funding, to span over the next seven years, comes partly from the federal government's Building Canada long-term infrastructure plan. Ottawa will also put gas tax revenue into the funding.

"This is a big, big country. The Northwest Territories, all by itself, is bigger than most countries in the entire world," Ablonczy said at the announcement.

"So you got a lot of land to link together with roads and bridges, and a lot of communities that are going to need infrastructure."

The first priority under the federal funding will be to replace the 50-year-old bridge at Kakisa, N.W.T.

That project, which would involve building a new 179-metre long, three-span, two-lane bridge, is estimated to cost about $18 million. Under the plan, the territory has to put up 25 per cent of the money needed for any one project.

McLeod said the government hopes to start work on the bridge around April 1.

N.W.T. seeking separate funding for Deh Cho Bridge

One place where the money won't go is towards funding the Deh Cho Bridge over the Mackenzie River, which is a private-public partnership (P3) project between the territorial government and the Deh Cho Bridge Corp.

"It's not intended that any of these dollars be allocated towards the Deh Cho Bridge at this point," Public Works Minister Micheal McLeod told CBC News.

"There's another component of the Building Canada plan that addresses P3 projects, and the request for the bridge funding has gone to that portion of the plan."

Other projects to be funded have not been identified at this time.

McLeod said the new money will go a long way towards repairing and replacing aging infrastructure in the North. At the same time, he said it won't solve all the territory's infrastructure woes.

"Even after taking into consideration federal and Government of the Northwest Territories investments, we have an estimated 10-year shortfall of $300 million for infrastructure," McLeod said.

That shortfall does not include transportation infrastructure needs, which McLeod said is "probably double" the amount needed to address municipal infrastructure.