CamBay residents want tough booze control in Nunavut

Tommy Kilaodluk and Lena Kamoayak of Cambridge at a hearing held Nov. 17 by a Nunavut government task force that his reviewing the Nunavut Liquor Act. (PHOTO BY VICKI AITAOK)

VICKI AITAOK and CHRIS WINDEYER

CAMBRIDGE BAY — Strengthening alcohol education committees, establishing treatment centres and clamping down on booze imports topped the list of concerns at a meeting of the Liquor Act task force in Cambridge Bay Nov. 17.

Residents pleaded with the committee to take action to control alcohol abuse and stem the tide of crime, health problems and social misery caused by Nunavut’s territorial drinking problem.

Alcohol abuse is directly responsible for countless horror stories and millions of dollars worth of government expenses every year, said Peter Harte, senior criminal council with Nunavut’s Legal Services Board.

“The direct costs of alcohol for Nunavut and Nunavummiut are millions of dollars — something in the range of 25 million dollars goes to the cost of RCMP policing alone,” Harte said, estimating that 90 per cent of crime in Nunavut is directly related to drinking.

“But that is just the start of it. We spend millions of dollars on related infrastructure like courts, jails and probation, almost all of which is a direct product of alcohol abuse.”

Add millions of dollars worth of health care costs, the impact of school dropouts and babies born with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, and alcohol becomes a massive drain on Nunavut, Harte said.

The task force is travelling the territory to hear what changes Nunavummiut want made to the Liquor Act, which was adopted from the Northwest Territories in 1999. Harte offered five suggestions:

• Requiring every Nunavut community to be declared “dry” until it elects an alcohol education committee;
• Making all liquor orders public documents so RCMP can inspect them without a search warrant;
• Requiring liquor permits to be attached to the outside of shipping packages and requiring customers to show a permit in order to take the shipment;
• Ensuring regular inspection of bars and requiring staff be properly trained; and
• Making it an offence to knowingly ship booze into Nunavut in a way that violates the Liquor Act.

And Harte scoffed at the argument that tighter controls on booze only leads to more bootlegging.

“This is, in my submission, a ridiculous excuse for failing to take action to deal with this crisis,” Harte said.

“When I co-sponsored a plebiscite to create an AEC in Cambridge Bay, this argument was very vocally put forth by an individual on the hamlet council who was, himself, a bootlegger,” he said.

More effective, Harte said, would be controlling the supply of alcohol so bootleggers have less available to sell.

The flood of booze is traumatizing children and shattering families, the meeting heard. David Kaniak, an elder, and Cassandra Evaloakjuk and suggested upping the legal drinking age from 19 to 21 because so many young people are trafficking bottles to make money.

But Kaniak added the problem is not limited to young people. He said he too has struggled with alcohol addicition.

“I grew up on Perry Island. In 1950 we moved to CamBay by dog team. I thought we wouldn’t see alcohol usage here,” he said. “My mother and siblings all used alcohol. It was difficult to quit, it is hard for me to quit. When I’m bored, I use alcohol.”

Mary Rose Maksagak and former Cambridge Bay resident Jerry Ell called for more addictions treatment services for Nunavummiut.

Ell said the money the Nunavut Liquor Commission makes from alcohol sales should be set aside to fund treatment services, instead of going into the government’s general revenue.

“You tie up that money so it goes toward treatment, counselling, education,” Ell said. “You tie up that money, lock it up. Use it to pay for our sins, as you will.”

“The GN and the MLA’s are taking this seriously. We want recommendations,” Keith Peterson, the minister responsible for the liquor commission and Cambridge Bay’s MLA, said in his closing comments to the meeting, “We want to hear the underlying issues, not only clauses and paragraphs and sections of the act, but we want to hear about treatment centres, bootlegging, counselling, and so on. Alcohol is doing something bad to our communities, those near and dear to us.”

The meeting was the fifth the task force has held since starting its work in October, with a few meetings cancelled due to weather.

The task force is scheduled to hold meetings in Coral Harbour Nov. 29 to Nov. 30 and in Repulse Bay from Nov. 30 to Dec. 1. before taking a break for Christmas.