Nurturing our north is to expensive?

[Oleg Bach]

Saw a head line today that the gov was complaining that keeping our north viable is to expensive ---I thought the GM bailout was to damned expensive! Our north is our nature - and the natural world and it's natural people do not have a price tag. To ignore the north and to get cheap with funding it means only one thing - that we are out of touch with the real world..with the natural world - once it is gone and the last of the first nations people are gone - we are next - I would safely say that some of our leaders are stupid racist in these regards - Our north is precious and guarentees our national atonomy!

[fellowtraveller]

if the feds pulled the pin on sending money to the North, it would be vacant and uninhabited three days later. The NWT has a bit of industry, but overall in the North the major industry by far is government.

Yukon for example has 30,000 people with four levels of govt very well represented: federal, territorial, municipal and the new growth industry - First Nations.

Yukon has 18 MLAs for 30,000 people.

[OddSox]

Saw a head line today that the gov was complaining that keeping our north viable is to expensive ---I thought the GM bailout was to damned expensive! Our north is our nature - and the natural world and it's natural people do not have a price tag. To ignore the north and to get cheap with funding it means only one thing - that we are out of touch with the real world..with the natural world - once it is gone and the last of the first nations people are gone - we are next - I would safely say that some of our leaders are stupid racist in these regards - Our north is precious and guarentees our national atonomy!

I suspect http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/701930 was the article you noticed - and it says nothing about the government. It seems to be a typical Star fluff piece without a lot of meat (or mukluk) to it.

[Jerry J. Fortin]

Here is a subject worthy of Liberal or any partisan support. Nation building is the category of the day folks.

[Alex Moore]

maybe there's a high cost to developing our north(I absolutely refuse to read that rag known as "the star" lol). But we must do so in order to extend sovereignty over it. Without any industry or population there to speak of as our own our claim over it becomes purely territorial. Without any legitimate claim to we may as well say "hello Russia, and/or USA please, come rape and pillage our land"

Canada is so far behind when compared to other northern nations we really have alot of catching up to do.

[Wilber]

if the feds pulled the pin on sending money to the North, it would be vacant and uninhabited three days later. The NWT has a bit of industry, but overall in the North the major industry by far is government.

Yukon for example has 30,000 people with four levels of govt very well represented: federal, territorial, municipal and the new growth industry - First Nations.

Yukon has 18 MLAs for 30,000 people.

No kidding. NWT has 19 for 44,000 people and Nunavut has 19 for 31,000. 56 MLA's for 107,000 people. That makes 1 MLA for every 1900 people in the Territories. Makes PEI look like pikers with 27 MLA's for 140,000. On the other hand, my town has two for about the same population as PEI.

[Smallc]

The NWT has the highest per capita GDP in the world about over $120K

[Guest TrueMetis]

The NWT has the highest per capita GDP in the world about over $120K

And that's without exploiting a huge amount of potential wealth.

[Alex Moore]

The NWT has the highest per capita GDP in the world about over $120K

can you source that? It seems odd to me and I've never heard it before.

[Smallc]

I really don't have time....here, you do the math:

Divide this:

http://www40.statcan.gc.ca/l01/cst01/econ15-eng.htm

by this

http://www40.statcan.gc.ca/l01/cst01/demo02a-eng.htm

It's about $126K. I don't have the cite for it being the highest in the world. It's just something that I've read before somewhere.

[OddSox]

The NWT has the highest per capita GDP in the world about over $120K

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Territories they have a GDP per capita of $97000 which is the highest in the world if it was considered a country. In terms of countries, Luxembourg is the highest at $83000.

But there is a significant amount of income from resources which include gold, diamonds, natural gas and petroleum, even though the potential of these resources is significantly higher than what is currently developed.

All of which doesn't mean much. The northern territories are still the most expensive place in Canada to live, and the most expensive place to do business. They are also heavily subsidized by funds from the Federal government, which funds provide jobs to a huge and expensive bureaucracy. However, there isn't really a lot of choice if Canada wants to maintain any type of significant presence in the area. A military 'outpost' isn't enough.

Edited September 29, 2009 by OddSox

[Smallc]

97K is an outdated number. I gave the newest estimated figures available from Stats Can.

[Guest TrueMetis]

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Territories they have a GDP per capita of $97000 which is the highest in the world if it was considered a country. In terms of countries, Luxembourg is the highest at $83000.

But there is a significant amount of income from resources which include gold, diamonds, natural gas and petroleum, even though the potential of these resources is significantly higher than what is currently developed.

All of which doesn't mean much. The northern territories are still the most expensive place in Canada to live, and the most expensive place to do business. They are also heavily subsidized by funds from the Federal government, which funds provide jobs to a huge and expensive bureaucracy. However, there isn't really a lot of choice if Canada wants to maintain any type of significant presence in the area. A military 'outpost' isn't enough.

It only cost so much because of the way most supplies are sent up there. A train would be much cheaper in the long run.

[OddSox]

It only cost so much because of the way most supplies are sent up there. A train would be much cheaper in the long run.

A train?

Do you know where the North is?

[Guest TrueMetis]

A train?

Do you know where the North is?

A train would work fine, it wouldn't be the first time a railway was built that far north and there was actually a proposal not to long ago. I'll see if I can find it.

[M.Dancer]

A train would work fine, it wouldn't be the first time a railway was built that far north and there was actually a proposal not to long ago. I'll see if I can find it.

The cost of building a line over the permafrost would be staggering. Heck, the payments for consultations to first nations would probably bankrupt Belgium, let alone the environemental impact studies.

[OddSox]

A train would work fine, it wouldn't be the first time a railway was built that far north and there was actually a proposal not to long ago. I'll see if I can find it.

Try taking a look at a map and find Iqaluit. It's the largest community in Canada's North (Yellowknife barely counts), and for nearly 11 months of the year it is only accessible by air - about 5 hours from Ottawa, an $1800 round-trip and over $6.00 per kilogram for freight (oh yeah, its on an island so the train might be difficult).

And there are many other Arctic communities even farther north.

Edited September 30, 2009 by OddSox