For the first time since 2020, Prairie grain is scheduled this week to ship out of the Port of Churchill.

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For the first time since 2020, Prairie grain is scheduled this week to ship out of the Port of Churchill.

For the first time since 2020, Prairie grain is scheduled this week to ship out of the Port of Churchill.

Approximately 30,000 tonnes of Canadian durum wheat from Saskatchewan-based AGT Foods is being loaded at the northern Manitoba port and will be shipped to customers in Europe. Stakeholders gathered at the port on Monday to celebrate the milestone.

Federal Northern and Arctic Affairs Minister Rebecca Chartrand alluded to the ongoing Canada-United States trade war in her remarks.

Federal Northern and Arctic Affairs Minister Rebecca Chartrand.

“What you’re seeing behind me right now is Team Canada working together,” she said. “We have federal, we have provincial, we have municipal and we have Indigenous governments that are all working together.”

The Port of Churchill and the Hudson Bay Railway are owned by OneNorth, a partnership of 29 First Nations and 12 northern communities, and operated by Arctic Gateway Group.

Denver-based OmniTrax, the former owner, closed the deep-water port in 2016, and the railway washed out the following year.

Chartrand speculated what might have happened if the federal government hadn’t brokered a deal in 2018 to transfer the ownership to local hands, which has led to Arctic Gateway and various levels of government working to revitalize the port and rebuild a customer base.

“The people behind us have seen this as an opportunity to rebuild, and to do so through infrastructure that would be owned by northern and Indigenous communities,” she said. “And today that determination is delivering results.”

For War Lake First Nation Chief Betsy Kennedy, seeing the ship and the train cars that delivered the grain to the port was “deeply personal.” She was born in a community along the railway, which has provided jobs for Indigenous people for decades.

“We have federal, we have provincial, we have municipal and we have Indigenous governments that are all working together.”

Source: Read the original article on www.winnipegfreepress.com