August 17, 2021 – Carrot River, SK Stakeholders in North East Saskatchewan are about to
receive an economic boost as a $21.7 million two-year construction project is started on building
Highway 55 into an export corridor into northern Manitoba.

“This is a game changer, says Mayor Roman Charko of Carrot River, this transportation
infrastructure investment has come at a time when we need it the most to export our agriculture,
forestry and mining products to global markets. Currently we face high transportation and input
costs and this is not sustainable.’’

Gateway Keewatin Stakeholders are in the opinion that the problem to the high costs of doing
business is not the northern location, but rather the transportation policies of the prairie provinces
that is creating an economic deficit to northern industries and communities. The Stakeholders
believe there needs to be a paradigm shift in transportation planning as well educating policy
makers and the public on why investing to build a safe and reliable export corridor highway into
Northern Manitoba is of interest to the Provinces and Canada.

Economic Impact Study written by Stephen Johnson of Praxis Consulting helped to provide the
Stakeholder with key information to bring forward to the provinces on the economic and social
benefits in having an export highway corridor into Northern Manitoba that connects to the
community owned Hudson Bay Rail at The Pas and the open Arctic Sea Port at Churchill. The
study concluded by investing into a 12-month dust free primary weight highway could lead to a
$7.2 billion increase to the GDP and $894 million tax for the provinces as well $1.9 billion tax
revenues to the Federal Government over 20 years. Further the social benefits include better
access to health care, education and the potential of 12,000 new direct, in-direct and induced
jobs.

There still remains improvements of dust control and upgrades in the forest area east of Shoal
Lake First Nation to the Manitoba border as well the need to harmonize traffic regulations
between the two provinces. Manitoba Highway 283 from the Saskatchewan border to The Pas
requires further road improvements.