MLA questions wisdom of Nunavut’s ban on EU booze

Iqaluit-Manirajak MLA Adam Arreak Lightstone says banning European mining could be a better way to protest the European Union’s ban on sealskin products than Nunavut’s current ban on European alcohol. (FILE PHOTO)

Iqaluit-Manirajak MLA Adam Arreak Lightstone said the Government of Nunavut should find a better way of responding to the European Union’s ban on sealskin products than to continue with its eight-year-old refusal to buy European beer, wine and liquor.

“The European sealskin ban is still a major problem here in Nunavut, but I’d like to mention that the EU alcohol product ban has proven to be an ineffective response to the EU’s ban on Nunavut seal products,” Arreak Lightstone said on Wednesday, March 14 in the Nunavut legislature.

“A more powerful message to send to the EU would be to ban future European mining companies from exploring or potentially extracting Nunavut resources. What would be the minister’s position on the issue?”

In response, the minister responsible for the Nunavut Liquor Commission, David Akeeagok, said the GN has no plan to resume the purchase of European alcohol products.

“It is still our stance that the EU ban is in effect, therefore as a minister I’ve given direction that EU products not land in our liquor store.”

Since the territory has no storefront distributor of spirits, he could have meant liquor warehouses owned by the Nunavut government.

“We are honouring a House motion that was supported by all members. Unless that is changed, that’s the only position that I’ll have right now,” he said.

It’s the same answer he gave Arreak Lightstone the day before, when the MLA asked if the new government would change the ban, which was put in place in 2010.

“As long as there’s a ban, we’re not buying alcohol products from the European Union,” Akeeagok said March 13.

In 2015, the European Union granted an exemption for certified furs from Nunavut Inuit, but with Nunavut’s small scale of production, hunters can find it difficult to get their furs properly certified.

On March 14, Arreak Lightstone brought the issue up again, about rising permit fees set by the Nunavut Liquor Commission for importing alcohol into the territory.

He asked how much of the GN’s $700,000 revenue in permit fees—outlined in a recent liquor commission annual report—stem from out-of-territory liquor orders made by Nunavut bars and restaurants that want to offer products not available through the liquor commission.

Akeeagok could not provide that kind of detailed information but said he would table the information later.

Also on the topic of alcohol, Arreak Lightstone asked March 13 if Akeeagok could say how revenues from Iqaluit’s pilot beer and wine store will be used.

“Can the minister give us a sense today of what impact revenues from sales at the beer and wine store are having on the government’s social responsibility expenditures?” he asked.

Akeeagok said that decision would be made once a review was done of the pilot project.

He said his department receives monthly reports on the pilot beer and wine store from the RCMP and that a “comprehensive review of the impacts due to the opening of the store” will begin after a full year of data is available.

Akeeagok did not have figures on store revenues, but he did say that the GN is seeing more money come from the general public than ever before, while revenue from bars and restaurants is dropping.

“We’re not getting the volume of orders coming from our establishments,” he said.

In his minister’s statement March 13, Akeeagok marked the one-year anniversary of the GN’s alcohol education “Let’s be Aware” campaign.