By Amanda Stephenson
CALGARY, Nov 12 (Reuters) – The government of Nunavut, one of Canada’s three northern territories, wants a decade-long federal moratorium on Arctic offshore oil and gas exploration lifted to reduce the region’s dependence on Ottawa and help fund essential public services, Premier John Main said in an interview on Thursday.
Nunavut possesses significant fossil fuel resources, including more than 180 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to federal estimates. Opening up the region to petroleum development could be a game-changer for a remote, sparsely populated territory that depends heavily on financial transfers from the federal government, Main said.
“Our government right now is very much struggling to meet the needs of our territory,” Main said. “We have a housing crisis. We have a mental health and suicide crisis among the young people. We have terrible unemployment and the worst health indicators of anywhere in the country.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney has been seeking to expand Canada’s energy sector in order to boost the country’s economy in the face of US tariffs. He has faced criticism from environmentalists for dropping or easing a range of climate regulations in pursuit of economic growth.
Carney said last week that his government had not decided whether to lift the Arctic oil and gas moratorium, after Canadian media reported the federal government was considering the move. The policy has been in place since 2016, when then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and then-US President Barack Obama agreed to impose it to protect the region’s fragile marine ecosystem from the risk of oil spills.
But Main said the federal government is aware of Nunavut’s position on the matter and could, if it wanted to, end the moratorium — which is reviewed every five years — before its current version expires in 2028.
“My understanding is there’s not necessarily a need to wait for that date, and the decision could be made any time to change the approach,” he said.
In 2023, Inuit communities in the Western Arctic signed an accord with the Canadian government to have more say in how their resources are developed, and laid out an agreement for the management, regulation and revenue-sharing from potential fossil fuel development in the Arctic.
SENSITIVE AREA
Canada’s Arctic region is an ecologically sensitive area, with its coastlines vital habitat for fish, migratory birds, marine mammals and polar bears.
Main acknowledged that the concept of opening up the area for drilling is controversial, both within Nunavut and in the rest of Canada. But he said other Arctic regions, including Norway and Alaska, already allow for petroleum development.
He also said increased local production of natural gas could reduce the North’s existing dependence on diesel fuel for electricity and heating.
“I know people have this image of the Arctic as being this pristine kind of national park thing. But you know, we are very much involved in oil and gas already in terms of being a consumer of those products,” Main said.
Any potential lifting of the moratorium would not result in a “Wild West” of oil and gas development, he added, but would require project proposals to go through regulatory reviews, environmental assessment processes, and engagements with Indigenous governments and communities.
Nunavut currently has no commercial oil or gas production. Limited production at the Bent Horn field on Cameron Island in the 1980s ended in 1998 after low oil prices prompted the operator to shut the site.
(Reporting by Amanda Stephenson in Calgary; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
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