Get on with the job

I am writing this letter in response to your article, “Pond co-op to fight NCC construction deal” (Nunatsiaq News May 23).

It is time for me to stand up and be heard. I am from Pond Inlet, I spent 17 years of my life developing Toonoonik Sahoonik Co-op, and some of my best friends live there.

As a point of order, Nunasi Corp. is also a birthright development corporation. It is owned by each and every beneficiary in Nunavut. I disagree with Bill Umphrey’s comment that the Nunavut Construction Corporation agreement does not protect small Inuit firms or guarantee Inuit participation in Nunavut’s economic activities. Take the blinders off, Bill, and tell me, How else will Inuit of Nunavut possibly benefit from this infrastructure program?

I went to Pond Inlet and met with the hamlet council, and I disagree with Mr. Merkosak when he says that we did not provide satisfactory answers about who would benefit from the new construction. I am sure that his company and many other Inuit companies will have ample opportunity to participate. No one doubts their ability.

Mr. Merkosak is wrong if he thinks that NCC will “crush” smaller Inuit companies. The mandate of NCC is to build the infastructure for the Nunavut government, period. Nothing more, nothing less.

The fact is, if there weren’t a company that was truly representative of all the Inuit of Nunavut, the Government of Canada would not be supportive of the project. The contracts would go to public tender, and the low bidder would win. There would not be any opportunity to share in ownership. We would lose the opportunity to register Inuit in apprenticeship programs and to keep them employed through to journeyman certification.

This program answers these needs like no other before it. For the first time, training money and programs are built into the deal. As well as certified journeymen, we should end up with qualified property managers, and maintainers.

I spoke to people in Pond Inlet who I have known for more than twenty years. They aren’t concerned about which Inuit group owns the buildings. They worry about years of unemployment, they worry that some of their grown sons, married and with children, have never held a job.

It is time to stop fighting. It’s not the Inuit way. Let’s get on with the job and pull together to make it work.

Give us a chance to do it right. If we fail, then criticize us.

Fred Hunt
CEO, Nunasi Corporation
Yellowknife