Liquor permit deadlock plagues western Nunavut following ransomware attack
One Cambridge Bay resident calls process “a nightmare”
In Cambridge Bay, it’s not simple to obtain a liquor import permit following the Nov. 2 ransomware attack that disabled the Government of Nunavut’s computers. Now, Cambridge Bay orders must be placed through the Hamlet of Kugluktuk. (Photo by Jane George)
The Nov. 2 ransomware attack on the Government of Nunavut has made importing liquor into Cambridge Bay “a nightmare,” says a resident of the western Nunavut community.
Liquor import permits can usually be purchased through the Nunavut Liquor and Cannabis Commission in Iqaluit and Rankin Inlet, the Department of Finance’s Cambridge Bay office, and the hamlet office in Kugluktuk.
But with no working email service after the ransomware attack, the process in Cambridge Bay has become a long-distance affair.
“While systems are being restored in Cambridge Bay, we have been directing people to the Hamlet of Kugluktuk location,” said a Nov. 26 statement from the Finance Department.
Residents can purchase import permits from any of the following locations, the department said, by calling these numbers:
- Iqaluit Beer and Wine Store: 867-975-6869
- Rankin Inlet Siniktarvik Building: 867-645-8576
- Hamlet of Kugluktuk: 867-982-6509
In Cambridge Bay, residents need import permits to buy liquor from the Northwest Territories and avoid high shipping costs from Rankin Inlet.
The import permits are emailed to a liquor outlet in Yellowknife, and then their order is flown up to Cambridge Bay.
It used to be quick and easy to apply for an import permit, but when one customer wanted to place her liquor order last week, the process did not go smoothly.
First, she called the number at the Hamlet of Kugluktuk repeatedly, but no one picked up the phone. Then she emailed her order with her credit card number to the hamlet, but received no response.
Then she decided to try calling the liquor commission office in Rankin Inlet.
“It was so hard to find the numbers online,” she said. “It’s a black hole. We don’t know anything because the government has made not their numbers available to people. You can Google ‘Nunavut liquor permits’ and nothing comes up. So the average person, how do you find anything?”
She said the liquor commission clerk in Rankin Inlet told her: “I can’t do it for you.”
Then she called Iqaluit but did not hear back.
Finally, after a week of repeated calls, she said the clerk at the Hamlet of Kugluktuk who handles liquor import permits called her back and took her order.
She said the clerk told her that since Nov. 2, the hamlet has been taking care of import permits for three western Nunavut communities and is overwhelmed by the number of requests.
Weather permitting, the resident’s order will arrive before the holidays.
“I didn’t need it this or next week—I wanted it before Christmas. That’s all,” she said.
Omg, what is happening? If this keeps up the community will become too quiet. Surely many good residents of the community are enjoying the peaceful moments. This may shut down, the inuit culture as we know it today.
It’s not as though a beer drinking culture is suffering as by the joys of a beer. What suffers are the trouble makers, and brave cowboys of the great north deprived of their lunatic behaviour. That’s all good. But I bet the real beer drinking boys who can handle the stuff with joy are chugging and laughing. Having a beer and watching an otherwise idiot go about his business sober and free.
It could help some people but watch out for some withdrawl rage.
water, yeast, sugar and raisons.
just use filtered water, not the Cambridge Bay tap water.
or so I’m told.
Yes i hear you, home brew. Its can be good. It was the way to go back in the day. But lets face the reality here. If anyone living in this country has to revert back to home brew because of necessity, its a story in itself. I can see doing it because you like it, but because you have too, thats something else. If you are in a situation or worst, a community in canada, and you have to make raisins, water and yeast to help you get a taste of alcohol , man, you need to look at yourself and your community, and see whats wrong.
seriously right. mine was a bad joke but yes, it pokes at the truth of the lengths some may go to get that hit.
if you can’t afford to smoke, don’t.
if you can’t get a drink, don’t.
if you can’t smoke that wacky tabacky, don’t.
don’t take it out on the ones who choose not to.
They gave this lady the wrong number, the number to call is 982-6500
Needs vs wants.
Priorities in life . . . ?
Sad
“I want it before Christmas . . . .”
Imagine — a Christmas without alcohol???
There are health centres, schools, etc across the territory who’ve had no internet or government email for a month.
I must be the one overwhelming the clerk in Kug, because I’ve done like 4 orders since the beginning of November. It was pretty easy. Kudos to the Clerk in Kug.
I think the point of this story is that the process is crazy and totally without logic and gee, werent we supposed to get a beer and wine store here? The loss of acess to the permits because of the ransom ware is not the only issue, but it is an easy one to understand. We rely on the gn to provide us with too many services, gn, provide us with some independence, get the beer store into the towns that asked.
What you need is a tea house, not a beer store. A place where you can have a piece of bannock with your cup of tea. You can’t handle alcohol, so stop whining for it.
I am guessing you expect the gn to provide that for tea for you as well. And hey, make the government provide social housing too so I can have my tea house subsidized because why should we have to worry our pretty heads about such things. The gov should look after us all. They can even make the tea for me and bring it to my house in a teapot they give me. We need to start taking responsibility for our own lives. We should be able to buy our tea and drink it too.
The amount of people in Cambridge Bay who think that they were “supposed to get” a beer and wine store is absurd. There was a non-binding plebiscite on the community’s opinion on having a beer and wine store. There was never any plan in place to have one. If you want to complain that a non-binding plebiscite is pointless and a waste of money, go for it, but stop saying you were “supposed to get one”.
Ransomware brings the GN to its knees and the most noticeable thing about it is that the liquor permits are screwed up. That is very telling on many different levels.
Not going to lie, I havent seen that many drunks here in town since the ransomware attacks 5 weeks ago. Wish it would stay this way,
Liquor permits are unconstitutional, and if not for an ambiguous ruling from the SCC in the Comeau case, we would be done with them. How can you import something within your own country? Silliness.