GN should open retail liquor stores in Iqaluit, Rankin, CamBay

“Everything is on the table,” Finance Minister Keith Peterson is quoted as saying in Nunatsiaq News on the Government of Nunavut’s plans to overhaul the liquor act.

The GN is doing the right thing by starting the process by at least talking about the most fundamental problems associated with alcohol here in Nunavut.

My personal opinion is that GN should open retail liquor store in the capital city, Iqaluit, and in Rankin Inlet and Cambridge Bay as the only three retail liquor stores in Nunavut. The benefits will outweigh the problems in the long run.

How can that be? Just ask anyone who ever bought or bartered liquor from someone other than a liquor store here in Nunavut.

It’s about cost and freedom. People living in Nunavut at times have no choice but to improvise in getting a simple drink of alcohol in the comfort of their own homes and enjoy their leisure activities.

Are we as a society in Nunavut turning into hypocrites? We can go to bars and restaurants and drink alcohol under controlled environments.

We pay the price for this freedom and it’s stupid that we don’t have the real freedom to go out and buy retail-priced alcohol at a liquor store in Nunavut.

We can order alcohol from down south with liquor permits and what’s even more stupid is you don’t need a liquor permit if you order alcohol from either Rankin Inlet or Iqaluit in Nunavut.

But we still have to pay extra for airline freight charges from either destination. This is a stupid and useless service.

This entire price gouging is every way possible is a serious deterrent to ordering liquor legally. Somehow we end up with the so-called bootleggers.

The bottleggers are just filling the void in the very basic freedom we should have as ordinary citizens of Canada to buy retail-priced alcohol at a legal liquor store outlet.

We can learn from places like Norman Wells, Inuvik and even Nuuk, Greenland, which all have liquor stores. They realized a long time ago that by denying the very basic freedom to choose to buy alcohol at retail prices and drink at our leisure in our own homes we will eventually become a frustrated society in which wicked manners manifest themselves, at times from the results of being denied the basic freedom to choose.

Living in Nunavut is very difficult at times, partly because of the isolation and limited facility’s to ease the boredom that comes from being in an isolated community or city.

Alcohol seems to be a solution for most people’s leisure activities when they are feeling isolated and bored. That’s why we have alcohol and it’s seems to be a real life benefit for some to help cope with living in Nunavut.

There is a cost, though, when trying to get alcohol. Often people who pay bootlegged prices tend to have no choice but to buy from bootleggers because of the unfavourable restrictions imposed on ordinary citizens of Nunavut.

We can talk about the social impact associated with alcohol, but are we really that different from other people living all across Canada who can go to a liquor store and buy their favourite alcohol beverage?

This lack of freedom is feeding the frenzy of getting alcohol at any cost. It’s not the only the wealthy or resourceful people who are buying from bootleggers, it’s most often the ordinary citizens of Nunavut who aren’t wealthy or resourceful, or just people who simply don’t have time to deal with getting alcohol legally.

When someone buys from a bootlegger, paying up to two or sometimes up to 15 times the normal amount for the same retail-priced bottle , the feelings of shame and guilt from spending so much on a bottle often follows the next day after a night of drinking.

In conclusion, I know the change will be difficult if we ever opened retail liquor stores in Nunavut.

But if we manage it with true conviction and respect, people will soon realize it’s not about feeling shameful when buying alcohol, but by learning and being educated about the consequences of abusing alcohol and learning to drink responsibility.

Only then can we in our society become better citizens of Nunavut. Only then can we really gauge our progress in Nunavut with the freedom to choose like other ordinary citizens of Canada.

Sylvain Degrasse
Iqaluit

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