15 January 2008
Scrap CPR Rail Yards, MP Says
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Winnipeg Centre NDP MP Pat
Martin.
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Winnipeg Manitoba - Canadian Pacific Railway should rip up
its Winnipeg Yards to make way for new inner-city housing, green space, and commercial developments, says a Winnipeg MP
working with architects and inner-city groups.
Winnipeg Centre MP Pat Martin is trying to renew interest in a 30-year-old plan to end the division between the North End
and inner city by moving the CPR Winnipeg Yards outside city limits.
In the late 1970s and early '80s, inner-city activists opposed to a proposed Sherbrook-McGregor overpass
lobbied to relocate the yards, but federal funding for the relocation fell apart during the early days of Pierre Trudeau's final term
as prime minister.
The idea was revived in the late 1990s, but no money was ever pledged to fund removal of the yards, construction of new facilities or
the soil remediation required to alleviate the effects of more than a century of industrial pollution.
Now, as Canada embarks on a plan to revitalize its railroad system, the time is right to reconsider the CPR Winnipeg Yards, argues
Martin, who calls the tracks "a horrible scab" that divided the city when they were created and have since become a
"godforsaken industrial blight" that has hampered the development of adjacent neighbourhoods.
"It was built in 1882, when it didn't seem like such a bad idea," the NDP member of Parliament said in a telephone interview
on Monday. "We ghettoized Winnipeg with this great divide and it defined the cultural development of the city for years to
come."
During the original relocation debate three decades ago, the price tag for removing the yards was in the tens of millions, Martin said.
Today it would likely cost hundreds of millions, if not more than $1 billion, to conduct all the relocation, remediation, construction,
and landscaping work required to both build a new community within the city and create a new railway facility outside city limits.
However, Martin said this goal is not impossible, given the Conservative government's commitment toward a new railway strategy. The
federal government has set aside $1 billion toward a transportation infrastructure kitty called the Asia-Pacific Gateway
and Corridor Initiative and has also socked away $2.1 billion in the Gateways and Border Crossing Fund.
The possibility of the Port of Churchill operating more months out of the year during increasingly ice-free summers means
Winnipeg could serve as a hub between north-south and east-west trade routes, Martin surmised.
"The really exciting thing is, right across the country, the rail system is being rationalized to accommodate the Gateway to the
Pacific project and the Churchill Gateway initiative," he said.
Martin also said the trickle of immigrants settling in Winnipeg has become a small stream, and the new arrivals will need new housing
more affordable than the brand-new lots slated for Waverley West.
"We're bringing 10,000 people a year and they all go into the inner city. We need a place to put them," the MP said.
"We're calling upon people to think big. Let's rethink Winnipeg in a way that's bigger than whining about potholes. Let's redesign
the city."
Despite Martin's enthusiasm, the would-be players in any possible CPR Winnipeg relocation have yet to be recruited in the
cause.
A spokesman for Manitoba Finance Minister Greg Selinger, who wrote part of his London School of Economics PhD thesis about the CPR
Winnipeg relocation fight, declined an interview request. A spokeswoman for senior Manitoba MP Vic Toews followed suit.
Canadian Pacific itself did not even entertain the idea, even though Martin argued the company would be eager to divest itself of a
railway bottleneck currently used to stockpile old cars.
"It's too early to say anything other than we have no intention to move at this time," said Breanne Feigel, CP's
Calgary-based spokeswoman for Western Canada.
Point Douglas Coun. Mike Pagtakhan, whose central Winnipeg ward would be most affected by the revitalization of CP land currently
occupied by rail yards, pooh-poohed the relocation idea as pre-election posturing by a federal politician.
"I'm not sure about the timing. There's a possible spring election," he said. "If there's anything behind it - and by
that I mean money - there would be no problem getting things going. It would be the biggest thing the city would deal with, since its
inception."
Only Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz praised the idea, albeit extremely cautiously.
"I think exactly the same thing I thought when it was first proposed: It's a great idea whose time has come, but it will
cost an awful lot of money," the mayor said.
"The longer you wait, the more it will cost. But if there's a real push, I would welcome it with open
arms."
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