Response to parliamentary committees and external audits

Response to parliamentary committees

In April 2019, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development published a report titled Nation-Building at Home, Vigilance Beyond: Preparing for the Coming Decades in the Arctic. The Committee's report made no recommendations for the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency specifically.  However, this document issued a number of general recommendations, including calls to ensure:

• that federal decisions affecting economic development in Canada's North reflect meaningful consultations with territorial governments and Indigenous organizations;
• that the Government of Canada work with territorial, Indigenous, and local governments to help secure locally-driven solutions to the challenges of clean, reliable, and affordable energy in the Canadian Arctic; and
• that the Government of Canada work to close the infrastructure gap between northern and southern communities, with a focus on transportation and connectivity.

CanNor contributed to the Government of Canada's Response. In addition, CanNor works to further these goals through several programs and initiatives:

• CanNor released its Pan-Territorial Growth Strategy in 2019-20. This strategy was developed together with Northerners, and through engagement with territorial governments and Indigenous organizations;
• CanNor's Northern Projects Management Office (NPMO) works to facilitate the environmental review process for proposed major resource development and infrastructure projects in the territories. In 2019-20, NPMO coordinated the Government of Canada's participation in six territorial environmental assessments and facilitated approximately 100 interactions within the territories between Indigenous governments and groups, project proponents, foreign investors, chambers of commerce, industry stakeholders, and federal and territorial departments.
• In 2019-20, CanNor engaged with a variety of stakeholders, including several Indigenous organizations, on strategies to reduce reliance on diesel fuel in remote communities, and funded locally-driven solutions. CanNor also advanced northern perspectives at interdepartmental roundtables on alternative energy sources.
  
• CanNor's Pan-Territorial Growth Strategy commits the Agency to advancing infrastructure projects in the North. In 2019-20, for example, CanNor provided over $1 million to the Kivalliq Inuit Association to conduct a technical and feasibility study on the potential to develop a hydroelectric and fibre-optic link between the province of Manitoba and the Kivalliq region of Nunavut.