Image credit | Arctic Gateway Group
Guest blog post by Lisa Currier, Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, Treaty 5
Manitoba is being sold a story about the Port of Churchill Plus project. We are told it is about jobs, trade, national security, Arctic sovereignty, and “getting big things done.” It is framed as vision, leadership, and economic opportunity.
But Indigenous people in northern Manitoba have heard this story before. Hydro, mining, flooding, and major development projects have all arrived with promises, paperwork, public relations, and pressure. Too often, our communities were left to live with the damage. So we are not confused.
The Port of Churchill Plus project is a proposal by the Government of Manitoba and The Arctic Gateway Group to expand shipping through Hudson Bay, including building a gas pipeline and LNG export terminal.
An “energy corridor” is not neutral
The Port of Churchill Plus is not only a rail line, a port, or a shipping plan. When governments begin discussing liquefied natural gas (LNG), critical minerals, potash, agricultural commodities, silica, and other exports moving through communities and lands to Churchill, the issue is much larger than transportation, representing a potential northern extraction corridor.
Federal materials on Port of Churchill Plus describe possible upgrades that include an all weather road, rail line enhancements, a new energy corridor, and strengthened marine ice breaking capacity. Canada and Manitoba have also stated they are working with the private sector to explore moving critical minerals and LNG through the port.
A corridor is not neutral. It organizes land, water, infrastructure, investment, regulation, and political priorities around moving resources. It creates pressure for rail upgrades, industrial access, camps, shipping routes, private sector deals, and faster approvals. The North becomes a route to market, while the people who live there are expected to carry the risk.
Language matters. “Gateway” sounds harmless. “Trade corridor” sounds technical. “Arctic sovereignty” sounds patriotic. “Critical minerals” sounds modern. “Economic reconciliation” sounds like something people are not supposed to question. Underneath those words is a familiar development model: extract the resources, move them through Indigenous lands, promise jobs, minimize risk, manage opposition, and leave the long-term consequences for communities.
The risks are bigger than one pipeline
For readers new to this issue, the concern is not only one possible pipeline. The risk is the whole landscape that would be impacted by a northern extraction corridor.
LNG is a fossil fuel. In the chain of extraction, the fossil gas is extracted, transported, processed, liquefied, stored, loaded, shipped, and eventually burned. Each stage carries emissions and safety questions. Shipping and burning fossil gas has huge climate impacts, it is not a “transition fuel.”
There are also land, water, wildlife, and food system risks. Pipelines, roads, rail upgrades, storage facilities, port expansion, fuel handling, and increased vessel traffic can disturb muskeg, rivers, lakes, wetlands, fish habitat, medicines, traplines, harvesting areas, and places that carry cultural and spiritual responsibility. A spill, leak, derailment, fire, construction failure, or fuel-handling accident is not just a technical incident. It can affect the ecosystems that sustain our communities.
Northern people do not relate to land and water as scenery. Fish, caribou, birds, berries, medicines, and clean water are part of health, culture, economy, and survival. When store food is already expensive, harm to land-based food systems is not a side issue.
MMIWG2S+ safety cannot be an afterthought
Major resource and infrastructure projects like this, bring outside workforces, temporary camps, housing pressure, alcohol and drug risks, sexual exploitation, trafficking pathways, and gender based violence to communities. The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls called on governments and industries to address the connection between resource extraction, development projects, and violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people. Federal reporting on Calls for Justice 13.1 to 13.5 also recognizes that safety, security, and social infrastructure must be part of planning around extractive and development industries.
This is not theoretical for us. Community members are already discussing school and community presentations on exploitation, trafficking prevention, healthy relationships, online safety, grooming, consent, and awareness because risk does not wait for government paperwork to catch up.
That responsibility should not fall only on grassroots women, aunties, frontline workers, teachers, and community helpers after decisions are already moving. If rail, roads, icebreaking, ports, and energy infrastructure can be studied years in advance, then exploitation risk, trafficking risk, gender based violence risk, housing pressure, emergency response capacity, and impacts on Indigenous women, girls, Two-Spirit, and gender diverse people can be deeply investigated too.
Anything less is not responsible development. It is negligence dressed up as opportunity.
“No Indigenous opposition” is not a harmless claim
Premier Wab Kinew has said there is no Indigenous opposition to an LNG pipeline to Churchill. That statement cannot go unchallenged. Kinew told CBC there was no opposition among Indigenous leaders in Northern Manitoba to the construction of a liquefied natural gas pipeline to the Port of Churchill. The same reporting noted Clayton Thomas-Müller’s comments that the Premier had gotten ahead of himself.
That distinction matters. Some leaders, boards, corporations, councils, or shareholders may be interested. Some agreements may be explored. Some people may be invited to tables. But none of that is equivalent to consent from the people.
When a Premier says there is “no Indigenous opposition” before grassroots people have had full information, real consultation, and a meaningful chance to say yes, no, or not like this, that statement does political work. It tells the public the issue is already settled. It makes future opposition look unreasonable before people even stand up.
Redwashing is not reconciliation
This is where redwashing must be named. Redwashing happens when Indigenous identity, ownership, language, ceremony, or partnership is used to make a project look ethical while the deeper question of grassroots consent remains unresolved. It allows governments to say, “Indigenous people are at the table,” while avoiding harder questions: which Indigenous people, whose authority, what process, what information, and what right to say no?
Arctic Gateway Group describes itself as Indigenous- and community-owned by a partnership of 41 Indigenous and Bayside communities, including 29 First Nations. Indigenous economic participation matters. Revenue sharing matters. Jobs matter. But ownership does not automatically equal free, prior, and informed consent from every affected Nation, community, land user, trapline holder, harvester, youth, woman, Elder, or grassroots rights-holder who may live with the consequences of a corridor.
The federal Indigenous Advisory Council for the Major Projects Office is also not a consent body. Canada describes it as a council that provides advice on Indigenous economic participation, policy, process improvements, and UNDRIP principles. Advice is not approval. Representation is not jurisdiction. A national advisory council cannot replace the Crown’s duty to consult or speak for Nations whose lands and waters are directly affected.
The same concern applies to any Crown-Indigenous corporation or board created to advance major projects. If a structure helps governments move faster while grassroots people are still trying to understand the risks, it becomes a shortcut around consent.
Free, Prior and Informed Consent cannot be outsourced
Free, prior, and informed consent cannot be handed to an advisory council, assumed through an Indigenous corporation, fast tracked through a Crown-Indigenous board, or replaced by economic participation and benefit agreements.
“Free” means people are not pressured by poverty, funding threats, political isolation, or promises of future benefits. “Prior” means consent is sought before decisions are shaped. “Informed” means communities receive complete information about risks, benefits, alternatives, cumulative impacts, emergency response, climate consequences, and who profits. “Consent” means people can say yes, no, or not like this.
UNDRIP Article 32 says states must consult and cooperate in good faith with Indigenous peoples through their own representative institutions to obtain free and informed consent before approving projects affecting Indigenous lands, territories, and resources, especially projects involving mineral, water, or other resource development. That standard is directly relevant to an energy corridor tied to LNG, critical minerals, port expansion, rail upgrades, shipping, and northern infrastructure.
A seat at a table is not collective decision making. A corporate partnership is not community agreement. An Indigenous board is not grassroots authority. A government announcement is not Indigenous law. Silence is not consent.
Build what communities need
This does not mean northern communities are against prosperity, jobs, transportation, or economic power. What we reject is the idea that the only path to investment is another fossil fuel corridor. Indigenous people should not have to choose between poverty and pipelines. Northern communities should not only receive attention when industry needs a route through their territories.
If Manitoba wants to build something big, then build what communities have actually been asking for: housing, food sovereignty, community-owned renewable energy, youth programs, land based healing, safe northern transportation, climate resilience, protection for women and gender diverse people, and public systems that keep people alive. That is the kind of nation building we need. Not another corridor where the North carries the risk while others carry the profit.
The Port of Churchill Plus is an issue for the land, the water, the climate , Indigenous rights, safety , and future generations. We are not here to be managed into agreement, brought into symbolic consultation after decisions are already being shaped, or used as decoration for a development agenda that does not protect our future.
Our concerns exist. Our laws exist. Our relationship to the land exists. Our responsibilities to future generations exist. Our refusal exists. That refusal is not going away.
No Arctic Gateway pipeline. No LNG corridor to Churchill. No false claims of consent. No redwashing. No sacrificing northern Manitoba for fossil fuel expansion.
We will keep protecting the land and water, challenging what threatens our future, and building a future rooted in safety, sovereignty, and life for generations to come.