Transcript: Over $45M to support the Hudson Bay Railway and Indigenous projects in Manitoba

Transcript

[Music]

[Video starts with aerial footage of the Town of Churchill]

Chris Avery: You know the Indigenous and community ownership part of the Arctic Gateway Group is critical to its success.

[Video transitions to Chris Avery sitting in front of large windows facing a street at night]

Text on screen: Chris Avery (CEO of Arctic Gateway Group)

[Quick montage of images of trains and railway tracks in various states of functionality and repairs]

Chris: First, it ensures that we reinvest back in the infrastructure because that’s where the community and our owners live.

[Video shows more aerial footage of Churchill’s landscape before transitioning through short clips of various individuals]

Chris: The second really is the opportunities it creates for Indigenous and Northerners alike, opportunities that they never had before.

[Video transitions to Michael Woelcke speaking inside Winnipeg’s Union Station]

Text on screen: Michael Woelcke (Former CEO of Arctic Gateway Group)

Michael Woelcke: And what that will mean is the communities along that transportation corridor will benefit. We will be able to hire people that live in those communities, and they’ll be able to work in those communities and they will have good careers, not jobs, careers.

[Video shows clips of the welcome sign that says The Town of Churchill, the exterior of the train station, a small boat on the Hudson Bay, flowers, polar bears on rocks near the shore, and the train tracks leading into town]

Chris: And really the third part is economic reconciliation because economic activity and the wealth that the infrastructure will generate will go back into the communities.

[Video transitions to a close-up shot of Chris Avery speaking]

[Montage of a person speaking, a train with the Hudson Bay Railway logo on the side, and train tracks at the station]

Chris: And it’s a form of economic reconciliation that we don’t see anywhere in the world or in Canada for that matter.

[Music]

[Video transitions to Mike Spence sitting in front of a painting showing a polar bear with the northern lights at night]

Text on screen: Mike Spence (Mayor of Churchill, Co-Chairman of AGG)

Mike Spence: We need to see other products come through here, whether it’s minerals, raw minerals, fertilizer, potash, it could be green energy.

[Video shows aerial footage of Churchill and the Hudson Bay]

[Video transitions back to Mike Spence sitting in front of a painted backdrop]

Mike: You know, there’s a lot of things that can be shipped through the Port of Churchill and utilizing the rail line.

[Video transitions to a close-up shot of Chris Avery speaking]

Chris: The infrastructure that Arctic Gateway Group has is critical for the industry in Manitoba. What it does is it allows the mining industry to transport the critical minerals to the Port of Churchill and from the Port of Churchill a direct path to global market.

[An aerial video on the coastline and port, a blue and white fishing boat sailing away, a clip of the port, and a clip of a person speaking while gesturing]

[Video shows a map of Canada pinpointing the Port of Churchill before shifting down to Mexico on the map]

We have a north-south corridor that can link the Arctic Circle all the way down to Mexico. So, from a trade perspective, that is crucial.

[Video shows an aerial view of the Hudson Bay and Town of Churchill, flowers and the horizon of the bay, and a clip of the port]

[Video transitions back to Mike Spence sitting in front of the painted backdrop]

Mike: The federal government’s presence by PrairiesCan has been enormous. It really has been a true partnership. There’s no other way to describe it.

[Video footage of a Canadian flag flapping in the wind, the front of a blue train, and waves in the bay and the rocky shoreline]

Mike: PrairiesCan believed in this vision, in this vision of this transportation corridor, in this vision of local ownership, and without them we wouldn’t be here.

[Prairies Economic Development Canada federal signature and Government of Canada federal signature shown on screen]

[Music ends]