Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year (2017-2018 to 2018-2019).

Northern Canada holds vast natural resources, and developing these resources is projected to be a major driverx000D
of economic growth over the next several decades. At the same time, the north's communities and highlyx000D
fragile ecosystems are experiencing disproportionate impacts of a rapidly changing climate. These factorsx000D
introduce unique and significant uncertainties into decision-making on enormously costly transportationx000D
investments, including those that support mining activities. Stakeholders akin to Agnico Eagle Mines Limitedx000D
need high-quality analysis tools to inform their decision-making processes on their transportationx000D
infrastructures in these sensitive northern environments. Current analysis tools to support transportationx000D
investment planning are unsuited to the northern context's remarkably complex challenges. In this project, wex000D
aim to work directly with Agnico Eagle to perform an assessment of their data, in order to gauge thex000D
sufficiency of their data to support transportation infrastructure decision models. We will also develop thex000D
preliminary framework of these models - using options analysis - to quantitatively formalize the stochasticx000D
inputs of climate conditions, environmental impacts, and natural resource prices on Agnico Eagle'sx000D
transportation infrastructure decisions. These decisions could include under what conditions (of climatex000D
conditions, environmental mitigation, resource prices, etc.) one set of transportation facilities may be morex000D
cost-effective than another. The model supports flexible decisions as these sources of uncertainty and riskx000D
change over time. The expected outcome of this project is an extensive data assessment and framework to buildx000D
an analysis tool specifically designed for Agnico Eagle's transportation needs within the northern Canadianx000D
context, specifically focusing our attention to their Meadowbank operations. The project will quantify howx000D
Agnico Eagle can balance efficient operations with environmental and social responsibilities. The project willx000D
contribute a new application for northern mining transportation infrastructure analysis, and train 2 HQP in anx000D
interdisciplinary area of key importance to Canada's north.