Share First Air with Nunavut ex-Makivik president says

DWANE WILKIN

The cost of flying First Air might be kept in check if the airline’s owners could attract new Inuit investment, former Makivik Corporation boss Charlie Watt says.

Watt had hoped to accomplish just that before he was turfed from the board of the Quebec Inuit birthright corporation three years ago.

A Canadian senator, Watt still advocates pan-Inuit ownership of the monopoly to control the high cost of northern air travel.

“A deal like that is very possible,” he said, “because if we don’t do it, all the businesses trying to survive in the North are going o have a hard time.”

When Makivik Corp. purchased First Air in 1990, Watt said, he intended to approach Inuit organizations across the Northwest Territories to put money into the growing carrier.

The idea was to help the airline pay for expanding and upgrading its fleet in return for shares in the company. The airline could then be operated at or near cost­not unlike a public utility.

“I’m not saying get away from profit altogether, but make enough to maintain yourself and get some new money in,” said Watt. “That would turn the company in a very healthy direction.”

But the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement was still in the process of being settled, and before Watt could peddle his scheme to Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., Makivik shareholders voted him out of office.

Makivik Corp. currently owns 100 per cent of the Carp, Ont.-based airline, which has enjoyed a monopoly on jet service in the Baffin and on southbound routes to Montreal and Ottawa since Canadian North left the market in 1995.

Lowest advertised one-way fares between Montreal and Iqaluit and Ottawa and Iqaluit have risen steeply in recent years­32 per cent since 1992, according to the Offical Airline Guide.

The aviation statistics centre in Ottawa reports, furthermore, that fewer than half of all travellers in the North benefit from discounted return-trip fares­compared with more than 80 per cent of southern Canadians.

And man consumers think they’d be better served if there were two major airlines in the eastern Arctic, though Watt said there isn’t enough volume to support two large carriers.

“That’s why its so important for the Inuit of the NWT and the Quebec Inuit to support their airline company and try to use it to advance their business at the other end,” he said.