Ottawa committed $405 million to the Mackenzie Valley Highway on Tuesday, meant to link Wrigley — where the all-season road network currently ends — with the Dempster Highway near Inuvik. Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon announced the funding in Yellowknife alongside NWT Deputy Premier Caroline Wawzonek and Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Rebecca Alty, calling it a project of “national interest.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney wrote on X that this marks the end of “decades of false-starts.” The federal government announced $102.5 million for this same Great Bear River bridge back in 2018, and the highway still isn’t finished — Tuesday’s money is best read as the latest installment in a long pattern of partial funding, not a guarantee the project gets completed any time soon.
This round of money covers three specific pieces — building the Great Bear River Bridge near Tulita, moving into the second phase of the Prohibition Creek Access Road, and wrapping up environmental review and design work on the Wrigley-to-Norman Wells stretch.
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MacKinnon acknowledged this round won’t finish the highway, saying Ottawa intends to keep funding subsequent phases without delay. Officials are also framing the highway as a security asset, arguing a dependable year-round route would ease communities’ dependence on barges and winter roads while reinforcing Canada’s Arctic presence.
Pehdzéh Kı̨ First Nation Chief Jamie Moses has said his community supports the project in principle but hasn’t given formal consent, a process guided by the community’s own land rights and governance.
Pehdzéh Kı̨, the Sahtu Secretariat and the Gwich’in Tribal Council signed a joint memorandum of understanding earlier this year, laying out how the three would work together on the file.
