THE PRESS IS ECONOMIC INFRASTRUCTURE, SCAFFOLDING FOR DEMOCRACY. WITHOUT IT, POWER GOES UNCHECKED.

When Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a laundry list of northern military spending and infrastructure projects at a press conference in Yellowknife earlier this month, one item got particularly enthusiastic applause: the Taltson Hydro expansion project.

Carney pitched the Taltson expansion as a key to providing Yellowknife and other communities on the grid with "reliable, clean electricity" and a "force multiplier" for the territory's economy. Taltson, along with other projects Carney announced, will "unleash new career opportunities, higher paycheques, faster trips, stronger communities and they will make large investments possible by connecting the Canadian North and the Arctic," the prime minister said.

These are ambitious goals and they rest, in part, on a project that many Canadians have likely never heard about. So what is the Taltson expansion — and why does it matter?

A cable under Canada's deepest lake

Unlike most Canadian provinces, the Northwest Territories (NWT) currently has two electrical grids: the Snare grid, which sits on the north side of the Great Slave Lake and serves Yellowknife and adjacent communities, and the Taltson grid on the south side of the lake near Fort Smith. Both systems rely primarily on hydropower from rivers that flow into the lake, but the Snare grid routinely needs backup diesel generators to meet Yellowknife’s power demands, in part because of drier-than-normal conditions.

The Taltson system, on the south side of the lake, doesn’t have drought problems. Experts estimate the project could generate about 10 times more than its current 22 MW capacity. It currently serves Fort Smith, Hay River, the Kátł'odeeche First Nation and Enterprise.

The project first came online in 1965 to power the Pine Point lead-zinc mine, significantly impacting the former community of Rocher River, which had been abandoned by the late 1960s.

The expansion project is estimated to cost between $2 and $3 billion and include two initiatives: nearly tripling the generation station's capacity to 60 MW, which could be enough to power between 32,000 and 70,000 homes, and connecting the Taltson grid to the Snare grid through an underwater cable across Great Slave Lake. If completed, the Taltson project would serve 11 communities and about 70 per cent of the territory's population.

Longer-term plans for the project would see Taltson and the unified NWT grid connect to Alberta or Saskatchewan's provincial grids.

The project is backed by the Deninu Kųę́ First Nation, Fort Resolution Métis Government, Fort Smith Métis Council, Hay River Métis Government Council, Łutsel K'e Dene First Nation, Northwest Territories Métis Nation, Salt River First Nation, Yellowknives Dene First Nation, and the government of the Northwest Territories.

Frequent blackouts

Proponents estimate the project would reduce about 240,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually and reduce both power outages and reliance on diesel generators in the communities connected to the grid — particularly Yellowknife. Power outages are relatively common in the city and territory, with the territorial power utility showing a 30 per cent increase last year, in part because of mechanical problems at both the Taltson and Snare hydro-generating stations.

The territorial and federal governments are also pitching the project as vital to attracting major investments in the territory, particularly mines. In late 2024, Natural Resources Canada conditionally granted the project $25 million as a way to "unlock" the territory's critical minerals mining industry.

Not everyone is convinced the project will be the promised panacea.

"The biggest problem is there's an open question about whether there's actually a solid business case behind this concept," said Shauna Morgan, MLA for Yellowknife North.

With such a high price tag, the project will only reduce electricity rates in the communities it serves if major industrial projects also need the power and help foot the bill. Despite the government's claim the project could boost critical mineral mines in the territory, no such projects are in the works — and the biggest industrial operations in the territory, its three diamond mines, are all in various stages of winding down.

Even if some new mines are proposed in the months or years to come, there's no guarantee they would be close enough to a grid-connected community to rely on Taltson-generated power. And if one of the primary goals of the project is to wean mines and other industrial users off diesel generators, other forms of renewable power might be cheaper and more convenient, Morgan said.

The Taltson expansion project has already bumped up against the limits of industry. The Dezé Energy Corporation tried to build an early version of the project in the early 2010s. That push fell through after the territory's diamond mines said they couldn't buy enough power from the project to make it financially viable.

Proponents have also argued the project could help the territory meet its climate targets, which rely in part on getting more buildings to use electricity for space heating. Heating oil — both expensive and polluting — is the most widely used heat source in the territory, in part because electricity isn't reliable enough in the territory's intense cold.

But Morgan noted that the Taltson expansion itself won't guarantee fewer outages, which can also be caused by problems with transmission lines. Wood or biomass heating is typically more reliable and affordable in the territory, she said.

Mark Heyck, executive director of the Arctic Energy Alliance and former mayor of Yellowknife, added that an existing push to incentivize institutional, commercial and industrial power users on the current Taltson system to heat with electricity gives them a discounted power rate.

But it comes with the caveat that if the mothballed Pine Point mine restarts operations and needs electricity, they will lose the priority rate. This raises questions about whether consumers, who transition to electric heating if the Taltson expansion goes through, will be prioritized over industrial users.

A spokesperson for the territorial ministry of infrastructure said Carney's push to advance the project to the Major Projects Office "represents an important opportunity to draw on project management, financing and regulatory expertise," hinting the designation might provide clarity about the project's financial feasibility. The government will make a final investment decision after commercial agreements, regulatory approvals and project financing are in place by the end of 2028, they said.

Morgan remains skeptical that the proposed expansion will ever be feasible unless the federal government decides to foot the bill. If Ottawa does provide financial support after the Major Projects Office assessment, she questions whether the territory will have lost opportunities to get federal support for other projects that might better reduce the territory's emissions and energy costs.

"What other projects are we missing out on?" she asked.*