Iqaluit releases plan for sustainable future

The City of Iqaluit wants to hear from residents about a new draft action plan for sustainability that can be viewed online at sustainableiqaluit.com. (FILE PHOTO)

After seven years of work, Iqaluit finally has a draft action plan for sustainability.

This draft plan tries to address the sharp reality of challenges facing the city — from inadequate housing and an insufficient amount of daycare spaces, to a dire need for sustainable resources.

The draft plan then paints a 50-year “where we want to be” road map for the future. Its goal: to take “actions that move us towards a better long-term future.”

“It’s how to make decisions not just for today, but for the future too and then ensuring that today’s decisions do not compromise the future generations to meet their own needs,” said Robyn Campbell, the sustainability coordinator at the City of Iqaluit.

The draft plan covers three areas — Iqaluit’s relationship to the environment, its families’ well-being, and the city’s larger society.

Topics covered within these categories include:

• managing waste, water and energy;

• promoting mental health, healthy food plans, housing and Inuit identity;

• bettering communications and emergency services; and,

• achieving economic potential.

You can view the full overview of the “sustainability framework and strategy” and the text of the draft action plan online at sustainableiqaluit.com

As for the responsibility for meeting its many goals, the draft plan says “municipal leaders” will act over the next five years to improve community sustainability.

For example, reaching the goal of “a cleaner community” falls on the municipal enforcement chief and director of recreation who will prevent litter through better signage and education about the solid waste bylaw.

And a “community wellness coordinator” will assist people in the city to get involved with the actions which they proposed during previous community discussions.

Other goals include a new solid waste management plant and an upgrade to the wastewater treatment plant.

The draft action plan is the brainchild of Campbell, who started the project in 2011 — although work towards the draft plan started well before that.

In 2006, Iqaluit became a member of the Sustainable Cities Plus Network and committed itself to developing a long-term plan.

Then, in March 2006 and 2007, employees of the International Centre for Sustainable Cities met with city councillors and residents to discuss sustainability planning.

The plan then got sponsored by a Green Municipal Fund grant from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in 2010.

“We worked together over the last year to consider important issues about our environment, our social and family well-being and our economy,” Iqaluit mayor John Graham said in an Aug. 7 press release.

After many public working groups and input from “500 Iqalummiut,” the city is still looking for people to make comments and review the draft plan.

Although the term “sustainability” essentially means the preservation of Iqaluit for the future, Campbell told Nunatsiaq News that she sees sustainability in a different light.

“I think if you ask me what communities said about sustainability and defining it — I think it’s a way that we interact with each other and the decisions that we are going to make,” Campbell said.

Campbell stressed how Inuit qaujimajatuqangit or traditional Inuit knowledge is used in the document, in combination with ideas shaped by community meetings and other feedback.

“Inuit qaujimajatuqangit is so beautifully complex, and so is sustainability — they’re incredibly aligned,” Campbell said.

“Many sustainability plans are written from a governmental standpoint. And we could have done that. The City of Iqaluit could have decided that they wanted a municipal sustainable plan. But what we’ve done is make a sustainable community plan.”

Campbell said people in all walks of life in Iqaluit helped to create the plan and that “one of the most amazing things I can see in this plan is municipal and community actions side by side on the same page to inform everyone and to get everyone on the same page.”

“The city doesn’t have responsibility for everything and other organizations don’t have responsibility for everything. It’s combined collective community tasks to move us to a better future,” she said.

It’s Campbell’s job to review actions taken each year for the five-year plan, and to communicate with community leaders to do status check-ups.

Residents have until Sept. 15 to comment on the draft.

After that, the final version will be released before the end of 2013.

You can contact Campbell to discuss the draft at r.campbell@city.iqaluit.nu.ca or call her at 867-979-6363 extension 232.