Quebec plans to release Plan Nord on May 9

Quebec’s minister of native affairs, Geoff Kelley, far left, during a visit to Kuujjuaq in March. Kelley will help launch the province’s Plan Nord near Quebec City next week. (FILE PHOTO)

Details of Quebec’s long-awaited Plan Nord will be announced next week in Quebec City, where the province will launch the first phase of its 25-year plan to develop Nunavik, along with the rest of Quebec north of the 49th parallel.

On May 9, Nunavimmiut will also learn if the plan lives up to its promise to tackle the region’s housing shortage, a need estimated at at least 1,000 new units.

“In concrete terms, there will be a solution in the Plan Nord for the housing shortage,” Nathalie Normandeau, Quebec’s minister responsible for the plan, said on a visit to Kuujjuaq this past March.

During the months leading up to its launch of Plan Nord, pieces of the plan have started to connect.

Quebec’s latest provincial budget, presented in March, revealed how much Quebec plans to spend on projects related to the plan over the next five years.

A total of $1.2 billion will go to infrastructure across Quebec’s north, or in Nunavik’s case, studies to determine the feasibility of certain pieces of infrastructure like roads and a deepwater port.

Of that, $56 million will pay for studies for a road link between Kuujjuaq and the province’s road network to the south.

Another $32.8 million will go towards looking at the feasibility of a deepwater port at the mouth of the Great Whale River as well as a road link from nearby Kuujjuaraapik south to Radisson, a community at the end of the Quebec road network.

These will improve transportation to and from Nunavik for the hydroelectric projects, mining and tourism development expected to speed up development in the region in future years.

Quebec’s budget allotted another $382 million to pay for other projects to improve social conditions in the region — which could include money earmarked for Nunavik’s housing needs.

Millions earmarked for these measures will flow from the government’s new “Plan Nord fund,” money from tax revenues from new industries, like mining, that is expected in the region.

Quebec also plans to spend $500 million on private resource development projects in northern Quebec.

And to protect the region’s natural environment, Quebec is promising to exclude all industrial activities from 50 per cent of northern Quebec and set aside 12 per cent of the territory as protected areas.

But plans to develop the region of Nunavik received a lukewarm reception from some of its residents.

Only a week after Nunavimmiut said “no” to the Nunavik Regional Government model, many say they want to see Plan Nord delayed until the region determines what direction it wants to move in.

In a radio interview on CBC’s Tuttavik earlier this week, Mary Simon, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, said Quebec should put the plan on hold until Nunavik’s position is “articulated.”

“Plan Nord should be a part of the future discussions,” Simon said, “not a separate initiative advanced by the province with no clear demonstration on how our people will benefit socially or economically.”

But Maggie Emudluk, chair of the Kativik Regional Government, does not believe the rejection of the NRG should change the region’s ability to respond to Plan Nord.

“Some people think if the outcome of the referendum had been ‘yes’ that we would lose out land,” she said. “But we already signed away our land in 1975.

“We have to work with what we have.”

Through agreements signed with the province over the last decade, the Inuit of Nunavik have gained little by little, she said.

And during the process of developing the Plan Nord, Nunavik has been a partner at the consultation table.

“We’ve taken the opportunity to show them our concerns,” Emudluk said. “This is an ongoing process.”

Quebec received 300 requests for projects needing money from Inuit, Cree, Innu and Naskapi who sit on a Plan Nord working group.

In a March visit to Kuujjuaq, provincial ministers laid out parts of Nunavik’s wish list that could see funding under the plan, including the creation of Nunavik Sivuniksavut, a regionally-adapted college prep program, similar to Nunavut Sivuniksavut; studies for connecting Kuujjuaq and Kuujjuaraapik to Hydro-Quebec’s power grid and the construction of a small hydroelectric project in Inukjuak.