The dream seems enticing: use the Port of Churchill to ship Canadian oil and gas to European customers so they’re not dependent on buying energy from Russia and thereby contributing to the war effort of President Vladimir Putin.
The latest enthusiastic proclamations of the port’s unfulfilled potential came in the past week from two authoritative voices in the federal Conservative Party. A related idea was outlined in Winnipeg last weekend by MP and leadership aspirant Pierre Poilievre, widely considered the frontrunner leading up to the Conservatives’ convention on Sept. 10. Were he to win the leadership and become prime minister, he says he would "quickly pre-approve export and shipping permits for oil at the port so that we can export Canada’s energy to the world from Churchill.
No roads lead to Churchill. Cargo must be brought in via a railway line from The Pas, and that track is occasionally unusable owing to shifting ground due to permafrost. The pipeline proposed by Mr.