Waiting for the next step

The Financial Post's Claudia Cattaneo covers the high expectations for development in Inuvik:

(I)n the rest of the country, debate is sure to continue about whether this nearly untouched wildlife haven should be opened to the oil and gas industry so consumers can satisfy their insatiable thirst for energy.

But in this tough town on the top of Canada, the most affected by the project, residents are not only ready for the project after 30 years of preparation -- they're getting impatient...

With their checks and balances in place, aboriginals put to work some of their government money to build new businesses. Entrepreneurs pressed ahead, too, with their own money, in anticipation that the North's vast hydrocarbon deposits would eventually be developed...

(R)esentment is building toward the many forces seen as standing in the way of development -- from the federal government and its slow decision-making process to the oil companies that have been sitting on huge reserves for decades, to the militant Deh Cho First Nations in the Central Mackenzie Valley opposing the project to gain leverage in their land claim negotiations with Ottawa, to all those holding on to an unrealistic image of the North.

The article is naturally somewhat biased toward development at the expense of everything else. But it's certainly worth noting that many of the groups who were concerned about development in the 1970s and 1980s have managed to secure assurances that future development won't be at the expense of the well-being of the local people and environment.

As a result, the most significant factors standing in the way of development now are based on inertia and bargaining power rather than any principled basis to avoid getting started on the pipeline. And those are obstacles which the incoming federal government should make sure to overcome to help share prosperity with Canada's north.