Proponents of a multibillion-dollar natural gas pipeline in the Northwest Territories will have to decide whether to go ahead with the project without deeper financial backing from the federal government.
The territorial premier believes without federal cash, the $16.2-billion pipeline decades in development will never become reality.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Wednesday that his government isn't interested in providing a larger basket of tax dollars for the commercial pipeline, saying it was up to the proponents of the longdiscussed Mackenzie Valley pipeline to push the project forward.
Harper said the only money on the table was compensation the government provides to resource development companies for a lack of infrastructure in the North.
The Mackenzie Valley pipeline project concluded a six-year review process in 2010 that ended with the owners receiving approval to build a 1,200-kilometre pipeline to transport natural gas south from the Beaufort Sea to pipelines in Alberta.
Building the Mackenzie Valley pipeline would require the development of three natural gas fields around Inuvik, N.W.T.
