Quebec budget puts mega-projects before people: MNA for Nunavik

Luc Ferland, who represents the riding of Ungava in Quebec’s National Assembly, questions what’s in the March 17 Quebec budget for Nunavik. Ferland (on the left) is shown here with Pauline Marois, leader of the Parti Québécois, and Alexandre Cloutier, MNA for Lac St-Jean and the PQ’s native affairs critic (on the right), when they visited Kuujjuaq last November. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

Quebec needs to put money towards solving Nunavik’s housing crisis and social ills before investing in mega-projects to open up the region, says Luc Ferland, the Parti Quebecois member for Ungava.

“We have to find a way to deal with Nunavik’s housing shortage and other social problems first and there was no mention of it in the budget,” Ferland said, reacting to the 2011-2012 provincial budget released March 17.

The March 17 budget includes $1.6 billion to projects related to the province’s Plan Nord scheme to develop northern Quebec.

Nearly $100 million will go to develop a new deepwater port in Kuujjuaraapik and ground links connecting Nunavik to the rest of the province.

“We’re talking about $1.6 billion over five years, but the vast majority of it will come from private enterprise,” referring to the budget’s creation of a new “Plan Nord fund,” fed by money from tax revenues due to new hydroelectric projects, mining and tourism development.

Like many in northern Quebec, Ferland is anxious to see the details of Plan Nord.

The budget says $382 million of the money destined for Plan Nord will go to projects to improve social conditions in the region, but Ferland questions if that amount is enough to address Nunavik’s housing shortage.

“We have to ask is this money exclusively for Nunavik or for the entire region covered by the Plan Nord.” Ferland said, pointing to the pressing social needs in the Lower North Shore and James Bay regions. “Nunavik needs 1,000 houses there right now, and that doesn’t include future housing needs. [The shortage] has a major impact on the quality of life of Inuit in Nunavik and on the social services there.”

In a March 2 news conference in Quebec City, Ferland and Alexandre Cloutier, the Parti Québécois native affairs critic, called the living conditions in Nunavik “unacceptable” and slammed the Liberal government over its record on improving housing conditions.

At the same conference, Ferland also spoke out against the new federal program Nutrition North, which many Nunavimmiut say has caused spikes in local food prices.

Days later, the government renewed a $4.6 million subsidy to reduce transportation costs in Nunavik while the federal government agreed to take another look at its food subsidy program, Ferland said.