Port of Churchill<\/a> open all year round, to keep the shipping corridor open all year round, what kind of icebreaking capacity do we need?\u201d<\/p>\nThe research is being partially done at the University of Manitoba\u2019s sea ice research facility on-campus, and at the Churchill Marine Observatory in Churchill, Man.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe facility on campus actually allows us to grow sea ice in our own backyard to allow us to follow the growth and the melting of sea ice,\u201d Wang said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the Churchill Marine Observatory we\u2019re doing something similar, but more under natural conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The study also assesses potential shipping routes and potential impacts on the environment and on northern communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cA big part of the route is making sure that we\u2019re not crossing areas or disrupting ice where communities would be using it,\u201d Arctic Research Foundation CEO Tom Henheffer told Global News.<\/p>\n
Climate change is playing a major role in the changing ice conditions and the opportunity for extending the shipping season, Wang says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Hudson Bay is on its trajectory to be essentially ice free by all year round,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s being a cliche for me to say that Manitoba is a Maritime province,\u201d Wang added.<\/p>\n
\u201cOften we think of Manitoba as a Prairie province, but as a Maritime province the future of Manitoba is going to be, to a large extent, really looking at the sea, the ocean that we have in the north. We\u2019re on the verge of something big that\u2019s really imposed to us by changing climate.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\t\t\tProject timelines<\/p>\n
Last week, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said Prime Minister Mark Carney put a tight timeline on the project.<\/p>\n
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\u201cHe shared that he wanted to see LNG shipping out of there by 2030, which is a very, very aggressive timeline. And I took that as a challenge, basically,\u201d Kinew told reporters during an unrelated press conference on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the prime minister\u2019s timeline. If we want the Port of Churchill plus project to move forward, it has to move forward it in the next four years.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an ambitious, but not impossible timeline, according to Barry Prentice, the director of the Transport Institute at the University of Manitoba\u2019s Asper School of Business.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you put yourself on a war footing, it is (possible). You can get things done really fast if you want to,\u201d Prentice told Global News. \u201cI mean, we\u2019ve seen these things drag out five, 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I think if we really want to do it, I don\u2019t think it should take that long,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Prentice says the Port of Churchill could have major economic benefits for Canada.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at western Canada, we\u2019re a long way from European markets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAt Churchill, you\u2019re already as close to Europe as you are to Montreal. So in terms of distance, and distance matters in trade and costs, so a closer route would be less expensive so that means we get higher prices and maybe more profit.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\t© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A feasibility study by the University of Manitoba and the Arctic Research Foundation is examining ways to extend…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,46,295,236024,66],"class_list":["post-630449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy","tag-environment","tag-port-of-churchill","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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