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NUNAVUT - A report by a Senate committee argues the proposed High Arctic research station would be too centralized and favours a network.

"There should be research carried out throughout the North both in the Eastern and Western Arctic," said Alberta Senator Tommy Banks, chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources. "There has to be a locus where the info is gathered and kept, but we don't think there should be a place where the research is centralized, where it would become entrenched and insular."

Several committee members travelled to the Western Arctic in June 2008 to gather the information that went into the report called "With Respect, Canada's North."

"Several witnesses recommended that any such funding be dedicated to a research network rather than a single institute, arguing that a network would be better able to capture a wide diversity of research subjects," reads the report.

Earlier this year Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs Chuck Strahl announced three communities were under consideration to host the High Arctic Research Station: Resolute, Cambridge Bay and Pond Inlet. The research station is intended to be a "world-class" permanent facility which would serve as a hub for scientific research across the Arctic.

"The idea of an organization rather than a building or two would be the best way to do that in the North because things aren't centralized in the North," Banks said. "When you say 'the North,' it's like saying 'Europe.'"

Mary Ellen Thomas, executive director of the Nunavut Research Institute, had no comment on the Senate's recommendations. She said the federal Department of Indian and Northern Affairs was expected to conduct community consultations in the three Nunavut communities in June, when such concerns can be raised.