KRG ponders booze-dope explosion in Nunavik

Johnny Oovaut, the mayor of Quaqtaq and member of the Kativik Regional Government Executive, tells the recent meeting of the KRG council that Nunavik municipalities should consider fewer controls on alcohol purchases to stop bootleggers from making money and encourage responsible drinking. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

KUUJJUAQ— Bootleggers and drug dealers are behind the increasing social problems linked to alcohol and drugs in Nunavik, Maggie Emudluk, Kativik Regional Government chair, told regional councillors at last week’s KRG council meeting in Kuujjuaq.

“We’re not telling the users of these drugs and alcohol to stop, but there has to be a solution,” Emudluk said during a discussion at the council on Sept. 17.

To curb bootlegging, Johnny Oovaut, the mayor of Quaqtaq, and a member of the KRG executive, urged Nunavik’s municipal leaders to amend their by-laws to allow residents to buy more alcohol.

Oovaut noted that alcohol prohibition didn’t work in the United States, where it was imposed in 1919 and eventually lifted in 1933.

If Nunavimmiut could buy alcohol legally— rather than pay bootleggers between $100 and $200 for a mickey— they would also spend less on alcohol, Oovaut said.

If limits on alcohol purchases become less strict in Nunavik, Nunavimmiut may avoid getting as drunk as they do now, he said.

That’s because when drinkers down a 375 ml mickey of vodka, they often take it straight and quick from the flask, without any mixers to dull the effect.

Some arrests may also be prevented if people can learn to drink responsibly, without breaking the law, he suggested.

“We want the public of Nunavik to have a healthy lifestyle,” Oovaut said. “If there was to be a Nunavik government, once it’s formed, I’m not sure we are going to have good representation because lots of the people have criminal records.”

Oovaut encouraged his fellow regional councillors to contact members of the new joint regional and provincial police team in Kuujjuaq with any information about bootleggers in their communities.

The Kativik Regional Police Force and the Sûrété du Québec provincial police force are in the process of setting up a joint unit to work on alcohol and drug investigations.

With help from this unit, police collected more than 400 mickeys of vodka, nine 1.75-litre bottles of vodka, quantities of beer and wine, 5.3 grams of cocaine, more than a kilo of pot, 300 grams of hashish and $46,000 of cash from the end of August to Sept. 16.

The booze and drugs were bound for bootleggers and dealers in Kuujjuaq, Puvirnituq, Quaqtaq, Kangiqsujuaq, Kangirsuk, Ivujivik, Salluit, Inukjuak, and Umiujaq.

Of the mickeys seized by police, 147 were slated for Salluit.

There, a group of fed-up residents, tired of the sight of empty flasks littering the land around their community, recently dumped a bunch of empty mickeys on their mayor’s desk.