Time is now to start Chignecto, Atlantic Loop projects, NS told

The federal Department of Intergovernmental Affairs and Infrastructure is urging Nova Scotia to proceed immediately with two joint multibillion-dollar projects.

“The Chignecto Isthmus is a vital supply link between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick,” Jean-Sebastien Comeau, a spokesman in Secretary of State Dominic LeBlanc’s office, said in an email Monday.

“Secretary LeBlanc recognized its importance and wrote to his counterparts in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick urging them to apply for funding under the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund.”

Comeau and the minister claim the federal government is willing to pay 50 percent of the cost of the major infrastructure project to protect the Chignecto Isthmus corridor from storm surges and rising sea levels.

In March 2022, a $700,000 engineering study identified the top three options for protecting highway and rail infrastructure, including bridges, along the 14-mile strip of land, the isthmus connecting mainland Nova Scotia to New Brunswick and the rest of the country.

The first of the three was to raise the existing dikes to 10.6 metres. The levees hold back Bay of Fundy waters that threaten the corridor infrastructure that supports about $35 billion in trade annually.

The second option was to build new dikes up to 10.6 meters and the third was to raise the existing dikes and install steel sheet piles in selected and vulnerable locations.

The costs of the three options were estimated at $200 million to more than $300 million at the time of the study.

The two provinces would choose a preferred option, but a spokesman for Nova Scotia’s acting Secretary of Public Works, Greg Morrow, said Monday that the two provinces agree that “the federal government has a constitutional responsibility to protect transportation, trade and communications links throughout the isthmus and to fully fund the project.”

The spokesman said Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are working on a hybrid version of the first two options presented to protect infrastructure.

“However, more engineering work and environmental assessments are needed to determine the details,” the spokesman said.

The sooner the better

Comeau said Monday that counties have only one month left to apply for the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund program.

“The sooner we start construction, the better,” he said, adding that any breach of the existing levees and major damage to transportation infrastructure would be much more costly for both provinces (but specifically for Nova Scotia, which could be cut off ). from the rest of the country) then fund the upgrade.

The rest of the cost for the Chignecto upgrade would be met by the governments of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick under the federal plan.

“Like similar projects we’ve seen in the past, I would put this (Chignecto) in the category of the Confederation Bridge,” Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston said last week. “It is of national importance, it is an important trade corridor and the federal government has a constitutional responsibility to maintain it.

“The federal government is really trying to entice the region to help them shirk their responsibility, and we are not going to help them shirk their responsibility. They should pay to maintain that corridor.”

Arguing over who should pay when nothing is done could jeopardize Nova Scotia’s main transportation and trade route, but the prime minister said “we’re not the ones risking it.” The federal government is the one trying to get away from its responsibility, and we’re asking them to just step up and accept their responsibility.

“It is a significant investment, but it is an absolutely necessary investment; (there is) $50 million in trading every day.

A federal government source who wished to remain anonymous said the Confederation Bridge is not a fair or accurate comparison.

The 8-mile bridge between Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, under construction from October 1993 to May 1997, cost $1.3 billion.

Prince Edward Island joined the Confederacy in 1873 with the promise of continuing rail connectivity to the mainland, and the Confederacy is a toll bridge with a cost recovery mechanism, the source said.

Atlantic loop

Comeau also weighed in on the Atlantic Loop.

“The Atlantic Loop is a transformative project for Atlantic Canada,” he said. “The project, which entails the construction of a new transmission line from Quebec to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, would enable the transmission of additional clean energy throughout the Atlantic region. The Government of Canada has made a substantial offer of financial assistance to the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to make this project possible, backed by thorough expert analysis.”

Comeau said this is the only real plan to move Atlantic Canada off coal by 2030, as mandated by federal and Nova Scotia law, while keeping electricity rates affordable in the long run.

“We have an opportunity to get this project going and we are urging the provinces to get involved,” he said.

The proposed loop, now estimated to have a capital cost of $6.1 billion, would improve electricity transmission capacity in the Atlantic region to facilitate hydropower inflows from Quebec and possibly Newfoundland and Labrador.

“Given the current state of discussions with the Federal Government and how they are approaching this, I think it would be fair to say that I believe there are currently more cost-effective methods of achieving our regulatory goals than the Atlantic loop. .” Houston said Thursday.

The anonymous federal source said the federal government is willing to invest $4.5 billion of the loop’s capital cost, but it has denied all key players — the governments of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec and the utilities that provide electricity in each of the three provinces – together by the summer to start work in earnest to realize the loop.

Meagan Byrd, who works in the office of the Prime Minister of Nova Scotia, said in an email last week that the $4.5 billion federal investment offer is really a federal loan that Nova Scotia taxpayers would have to pay back.

The federal source said the $4.5 billion investment would indeed be a loan, but it would be a loan with very favorable borrowing rates and no payments needed until 2040 and total repayment not until 2075.