What’s next for Iqaluit?

When Iqaluit mayor Elisapee Sheutiapik departs Iqaluit’s municipal government on Dec. 13, she’ll be able to take credit for some notable improvements in the city’s quality of life.

But at the same time, her successor will find many big pieces of unfinished municipal business, some of of them urgent and overdue for action, sitting at the top of his or her to-do list.

During Sheutiapik’s tenure, which started in 2003, Iqaluit finally found solutions to two of the city’s biggest infrastructure headaches: the dilapidated floor inside the Arctic Winter Games arena and the appalling absence of paved roads.

Now, most of the important roads in Iqaluit are covered with asphalt. While most Iqaluit residents would likely agree the city’s recent paving program was incomplete and that serious pothole issues still remain, the city made the most of the money available to them for road work.

As for the $2.5 million repair job on the AWG arena, there’s no doubt that the price tag, by Iqaluit standards, was high. But in a city with a young population and many social problems, recreation, especially for youth, must remain a high priority. Getting that arena fixed was the right thing to do.

Another accomplishment was passage of a new general plan and zoning bylaw after a lengthy consultation process that worked its way through many difficult issues. The city, of course, will continue to face numerous zoning and development issues, large and small. But getting this piece of work done was consistent with Sheutiapik’s stated commitment to long-term planning.

Some of Sheutiapik’s other accomplishments are less tangible, but equally important.

One was her ability to reach out to each of Iqaluit’s two big ethnic groups — Inuit and non-Inuit — and bring them together into consensus. In a community where some members of all linguistic groups still harbour lingering insecurities and resentments, this is a quality that all community leaders should ideally possess.

Another was her ability to promote Iqaluit in the rest of the country, through her work with the Canadian Federation of Municipalities and other forums. These efforts were at least partially responsible for the increased number of conferences and other gatherings now held in the city. Residents of other Nunavut communities may bristle when they read this, but for many Canadian and international visitors, a visit to Iqaluit is often their only exposure to the territory. That’s why capital city status is important.

Yet another was to acknowledge violence against women and provide moral support for women’s shelters, through the “Angel Street” promotion. The renaming of a street may be a small gesture, but it’s a bigger public acknowledgment of the issue than many other Nunavut leaders have ever made.

At the same time, Iqaluit still suffers from a long list of urgent infrastructure deficiencies, the greatest of which may be waste management.

Well-managed landfill sites aren’t supposed to catch fire and burn uncontrollably for weeks. But that’s what happened this summer and fall.

Once again, an Iqaluit garbage dump has been transformed into an environmental hazard and once again, city officials must find a new site, money to develop a landfill on it and money to operate it properly on a year-to-year basis.

Two other urgent infrastructure priorities are the need to replace Iqaluit’s city hall, now an unsafe workplace that is inaccessible to handicapped people, and build a new recreation centre that includes a new swimming pool.

To many Iqaluit residents, a new city hall might seem like a frivolous priority. But one visit to Iqaluit’s cramped, airless city council chambers will reveal the urgency of this need.

Most proposals for creating a new city hall and a new recreation complex involve some combination of functions within some kind of multi-purpose centre. Sheutiapik’s successor will have to move the process along to a point where the city makes a clear decision on what it wants to build, how much it will cost, and how they plan to pay for it.

Given that funding these projects will almost certainly require the use of a borrowing instrument called a debenture, which must be approved by a special vote among municipal ratepayers only, a clear plan is essential.

And when Iqaluit voters go to the polls Dec. 13 to elect a new mayor and to fill one vacant council seat, they should give serious consideration to electing people who understand the issues faced by small businesses.

Iqaluit city council voted down a proposal earlier this fall that would have allowed light industrial use on some lots on Upper Base that would be connected by road to the Plateau. This decision was well-intentioned, but it raises serious questions about where small, low-impact service businesses, such as snowmobile repair shops, are to be built in the future.

Government employment and airline transportation will always form the basis of Iqaluit’s economy for the forseeable future. But healthy economic development must also include a willingness to accommodate the needs of small business. JB