The three First Nations along Highway 69 south of Sudbury have agreed to a maintenance contract with the Ministry of Transportation. The agreement includes some provincial funding, all in an effort to improve highway safety -- including on the yet-to-be four-laned highway. Shwe Miikaan Limited Partnership is a highway construction and maintenance company owned by Henvey Inlet First Nation, Shawanaga First Nation and Magnetawan First Nation. It’s one of the companies doing construction along Highway 69 in Magnetawan. “We want to make sure everyone is safe,” Magnetawan First Nation Chief William Lloyd Noganosh said Thursday. “Anywhere they come from -- down east, up north, out west. You know they travel through here to go to Toronto and cities like that.” Along with Miller Paving, Shwe Miikaan was awarded a seven-year Britt Patrol Yard maintenance contract by the MTO. Crews will be removing snow and spreading salt on Highway 69, Highway 522, Highway 529 and Highway 529A. The contract, which runs until 2033, is expected to result in new jobs and training opportunities. “It’s not always a sunny day, but you know, we look forward to those days in the snow in the wintertime when we have roads to clear and salt to lay,” said Shawanaga First Nation Chief Adam Pawis. Thursday’s event was also held to announce $1.3 million from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund to allow Shwe Miikaan to buy equipment needed to provide year-round maintenance and enhance highway safety. “It all comes together to ensure we’re providing a safe highway,” said George Pirie, Minister of Northern Economic Development and Growth. When asked about the three sections of Highway 69 that still need to be widened to four lanes, Pirie said those are “very complicated negotiations.” “There’s a number of stakeholders and the negotiations with the three First Nations are in different stages, but I know that all the parties are committed to ensuring this highway gets finished,” he said. Any future maintenance contracts would have to go through the tendering process, but the partners in Shwe Miikaan said they’re open to future opportunities once Highway 69 is four-laned. “We would all hope that a local company, with local employees and local knowledge, would be part of things for a long time to come because it’s a great success story,” said Parry Sound-Muskoka MPP Graydon Smith.
