Article content
The federal government and the province have announced a major roadwork investment in Thompson, Manitoba’s northernmost city.
Article content
As part of the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program – Rural and Northern Infrastructure Stream, $40 million will be spent over the next five years. The funds include $20 million from the federal government, $13.3 million from the province and $6.7 million from the City of Thompson. Twenty kilometres of road will be refurbished over the next five years.
“This is totally unusual,” Thompson Mayor Colleen Smook told the Winnipeg Sun on Thursday. “It means governments are starting to take us seriously. They used to think of us as a small mining town that was going to die out. They’ve realized we are the hub of the North and we aren’t going anywhere. They have to step up and make us viable. This is absolutely fantastic.”
Article content
Smook said her community has specific challenges – adverse weather and frost heaves – when it comes to road maintenance. Simply repaving and refinishing roads in Thompson provides only a short-term fix.
“People just say you take off the surface and resurface it,” she said. “A lot of the time the damage is down into the base. You can’t just take off the top and repave it. That doesn’t work up here. So this is doing the roads properly again, getting some of the streets done that haven’t been worked on for 40 or 50 years.”
Smook said the project affects the entire North.
“Being the hub for the outlying communities, it’s going to do some of our main drags. It’s going to be noticed,” she said. “It’s also going to make it more attractive with businesses attracting people. You come in and we have decent roads to drive on. When we did a survey, that was one of the concerns – our infrastructure was in such rough shape.”
Twitter @JamesWestgateSn
Click here to sign up for our daily newsletter.
