Nunavut mayors warned to look beyond immediate benefits of mining

From left: Igloolik mayor Lucassie Ivalu, Kugluktuk mayor Ernie Bernhardt, Baker Lake mayor David Aksawnee, Whale Cove mayor Percy Kabloona, Iqaluit city councillor Jimmy Kilabuk, and mayors’ forum moderator Rhoda Katsak.

Communities must be prepared to look beyond the flood of cash and jobs that mining brings and plan for the day when the mine shuts down, Nunavut mayors were told Wednesday.

”When mining has left or is over, we are left with nothing,” Igloolik Mayor Lucassie Ivalu told the mayor’s forum at the Nunavut Mining Symposium last week. “It’s a boom-bust cycle.”

“We need to diversify communities,” he said.

“We’re still here after the mines close,” Kugluktuk mayor Ernie Bernhardt said. “It’s next to impossible for the land to be the way it was before.”

Bernhardt said there is more potential for cooperation between mining companies and Nunavut communities.

He said the planes that carry Ekati and Diavik diamonds from the mines could carry food for Kugluktuk on their way back, since they are all but empty when they return to the mines.

And Bernhardt said the communities have lost the chance to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the presence of the mining industry.

Part of that, he said, is because hamlets don’t get to negotiate directly with mining companies.

That role is played by Nunavut Tunngavik and the regional Inuit associations.

“The motherhood organizations should not control the abilities of hamlets to test the waters of doing business,” he said.

Berhardt said there are only 11 people from Kugluktuk working at the nearby Ekati diamond mine, mostly in semi-skilled positions, and there’s one Kugluktuk resident as a welding trainee there.

Bernhardt said Kugluktuk is home to 14 university graduates, of whom three have master’s degrees in business administration. He criticized the mining companies for not offering them work.

Baker Lake Mayor David Aksawnee lamented that his community was not better prepared for the mining boom underway near his home town.

“We [the community] are still working on things that we should have had when they started,” he said.

For example, Aksawnee said Baker Lake is short of housing because of the people from neighbouring communities who have come to Baker Lake to look for mining jobs.

Also, Aksawnee said many Inuit have the skills to work as truck drivers, electricians and cooks, but are unable to get such jobs without official qualifications.

Igloolik mayor Ivalu agreed, saying when the first mines opened near Rankin Inlet, Inuit worked in the mines without such paperwork.

“They learned by looking, even without English,” Ivalu said.

Ivalu said Nunavut’s educational system is not preparing youth for advanced education, and that many high school graduates who head south for more schooling don’t make it.

“That becomes a real issue for northerners in the south,” he said.

Bernhardt criticized the frequent practice of promoting students to the next grade even if they don’t do well enough to deserve the promotion.

“They cattle through our children to the next grade, and to me that is a real injustice,” he said.

Ivalu suggested that mining companies need to do more to help adult education in the communities.

The visible wealth that mining creates means that mining jobs are very attractive in communities with few other job prospects.

Aksawnee agreed that mining has its benefits. “People who have never worked in their life are now working,” he said. “Their families are happier, they’re not hungry any more, and they have big capital items. Of course, the are negative impacts.”

Aksawnee downplayed the negative impacts, such as alcoholism and drug abuse, because they also happen in communities without mining.

“These things happen all the time,” he said. “That’s just human nature.”

Aksawnee also said mining employment was compatible with a hunting lifestyle.

Employees who work two weeks in camp and two weeks off usually spend their off time on the land, which often means they spend more time hunting than people who work nine-to-five jobs in town.

Whale Cove mayor Percy Kabloona said that the exploration that takes place around his community seldom employs anyone local.

“They just come and go,” he said.

The mining symposium gathered mayors from four communities with varying degrees of involvement with the mining sector.

Kugluktuk has had mining jobs for decades, as the community in the Kitikmeot region closest to the diamond mines of the NWT.

Igloolik’s involvement in mining is relatively new, with the Baffinland’s Mary River exploration project nearby, while Baker Lake is in the middle of a mining boom in the inland Kivalliq.

Whale Cove was the smallest community represented at the mayors’ forum, and has only seen mining exploration nearby.

Iqaluit was represented by Coun. Jimmy Kilabuk in the absence of the city’s mayor and deputy mayor.