Municipal association calls for Nunavut telecom watchdog

Nunavut Association of Municipalities president and Cambridge Bay Mayor Jeannie Ehaloak, right, takes questions from mayors at the Baffin Mayors’ Forum in Iqaluit, March 17, with executive director Madeleine D’Argencourt. (PHOTO BY PETER VARGA)

The Nunavut Association of Municipalities is calling for a Nunavut-specific Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commissioner to keep the territory’s high costs of internet access in line with the Northwest Territories and Yukon.

Jeannie Ehaloak, the president of NAM and mayor of Cambridge Bay, told fellow mayors at the Baffin Mayors’ Forum March 17 in Iqaluit that she’s pushing for lower Nunavut internet rates with the help of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

The CRTC said March 4 that telecommunications provider Northwestel must lower its rates for specific residential internet services in Yukon and the Northwest Territories.

But that directive doesn’t apply to Nunavut, where internet access is provided through satellite.

“This digital divide highlights the need for a CRTC commissioner of Nunavut,” she said in a presentation to Baffin mayors. “The territory, to date, has been on the wrong side of an ever-widening digital gap which we feel can be bridged.”

Ehaloak described the need for improved internet access as one of her association’s priorities on the national stage, which NAM is advancing with of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

The mayor of Cambridge Bay is also chair of the FCM’s Northern and Remote Forum.

The NAM is using the forum “to ensure our priorities in the North are advocated at a national level,” she said.

Another one the association’s national priorities is to curb violence against women, Ehaloak said.

“Nunavut has already taken a giant step in recognizing how violence affects all our communities by renaming a street Angel Street, which was led by the City of Iqaluit,” she said.

The initiative led municipalities across Canada to rename streets, squares and bridges “Angel,” in recognition of female victims of violence and lend moral support to women’s shelters.

“This is a project that should not remain still, especially in Nunavut where it began,” Ehaloak said. Her own community of Cambridge Bay is set to rename one of its streets on National Aboriginal Day, June 21, she added.

“I would ask that all Baffin mayors join me in this initiative and consider renaming one of your own streets ‘Angel Street,’” she said.