Kativik Regional Government roundup

Maggie Emudluk, chair of the Kativik Regional Government, speaks at the meeting of the KRG regional council, held May 31 to June 3 in Akulivik. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

Nunavik’s municipalities — called Northern Villages — must rein in expenses and collect debts, regional councillors heard June 2 during the Kativik Regional Government council meeting this past week in Akulivik.

Otherwise, their collective surplus will vanish this year, warned Sarah Beaulne, the former secretary-treasurer of Puvirnituq, who now works for the KRG’s legal and municipal department.

In 2009, Nunavik’s 14 municipalities racked up a deficit of more than $2 million, cutting their accumulated surplus in half, from $4.5 million to $2.1 million, according to consolidated financial statements presented at the KRG meeting.

The information in the statements suggests a lack of financial management in some of the smaller communities in Nunavik during 2009:

• Umiujaq, population 400, wrote off $450,000 in bad debts, and showed a deficit of $428,262; Aupaluk, population 150, wrote off $246, 249 in bad debts, and ended up with a deficit of $179,562; and,

• Akulivik, population 550, had a deficit of $545,555.

Overall, the NV’s bad debts stood at $6.7 million — and their cash situation looked bad, nose diving from $2.8 million in 2008 to a deficit of more than $400,000 at the end of 2009.

The Naves also spent more than they took in, increasing expenses by nearly six per cent in one year, a level that Beaulne called “out of control.”

The NVs went $1.4 million dollars into the hole in their municipal activities and about $1 million for special projects.

Some of the regional councillors attributed the overspending to search and rescue operations.

Beaulne urged them to collect money that’s owed them and complete their paperwork for projects that require reporting.

Inuit numbers up at Raglan

The percentage of Inuit now employed at Xstrata’s Raglan nickel mine now stands at 17.9 per cent, according to statistics tabled June 1 at the Kativik Regional Government council meeting in Akulivik.

There are 121 Inuit out of a total workforce of 677 at Xstrata, and 14 more employed for joint-venture companies, which work on the site.

Kattiniq Transport has only one Inuk employee out of a total of 19 workers.

Overall, the Inuit comprise 16.9 per cent at the mine site.

The increase in the numbers of Inuit working for Xstrata is due to 40 jobs created by the $50-million Tamatumani training program, which was supposed to train up to 300 Inuit to work at the mine.

But some of the money earmarked for mine training will now go to KRG’s Sanajiit project whose goal is improve Inuit participation in the construction sector.

Nunavik’s circus program: full speed ahead

Nunavik has a new name for its circus — Circqiniq — and a new logo to promote the program, managed by the Kativik Regional Government and partly funded with money from Nunavik’s Ungaluk crime prevention program.

Under Circqiniq, youth in Nunavik will get a chance to clown around, with red clown noses, juggling balls and unicycles already on their way to the region’s 14 communities.

The five-year program is part of Quebec’s Cirque du Soleil outreach program, Cirque du Monde.

Founded in 1995, the Cirque du Monde program, which uses circus skills to teach life skills, operates in 50 communities around the world.

“Cirque du Monde does not claim to be a panacea for all social problems. Nor is it an entertainment designed to make young people forget the difficulties of their situation for the duration of a workshop. Cirque du Monde enables young people to achieve their full potential,” says its web site.

This August 50 youth will come to Kuujjuaq for a summer camp, and in the fall, circus instructors will start their visits to the communities, where local youth will be trained as instructors.

Public transit on the way for Nunavik

Public transit is on the way for the Nunavik communities of Puvirnituq and Inukjuak this year, with buses and shelters due to arrive during the summer sealift.

Quebec’s transport department has given the Kativik Regional Government $1.7 million dollars over five years to set up a public transportation network throughout Nunavik.

The money from Quebec will be used to operate the service.

The municipalities, the Kativik Local Development Centre and the KRG will pay for the vehicles and garages, which will also go up in Aupaluk, Kangirsuk, Salluit and Ivujivik this summer.

In 2011, the Usijiit vans in these communities, which are now used solely for elders and the handicapped, will also start picking up members of the general public.

The KLDC plans to give $668,800 this year towards the project, according to a resolution passed May 31 at the KRG regional council meeting in Akulivik.

Kuujjuaq and Salluit will also eventually see a new bus or van to provide the public transit service.

Passengers will pay a minimal charge to use the service because the public transit is supposed to become self-sufficient.

Redistribution of social housing needed in Nunavik

Social housing units must be better distributed, says the Kativik Municipal Housing Bureau, so that families whose children have left home can’t continue to live in a large unit.

But many tenants are reluctant to move to smaller units even though it might help the over-crowding situation faced by others, Watson Fournier, the KMHB’s general manager told councillors at the Kativik Regional Government meeting on June 3.

“Social housing tenants must show their willingness to participate in solving the region’s biggest social problem,” notes the 2010 Housing Needs Survey tabled at the meeting.

Quebec law gives the KMHB the right to re-allocate social housing tenants to an “appropriate size of unit.” But to date the housing bureau has been trying to call on tenants’ “civic spirit” to convince them to downsize.

The survey found one in five housing units is “under-populated.” Moving tenants to smaller units could help relieve the overcrowding in 43 per cent of the region’s 2,294 social housing units.

Unpaid social housing rent piles up in Nunavik

Over the past 10 years, Nunavik has accumulated $11.7 million dollars in unpaid rent, $1.4 million in 2009, according to information handed out June 3 at the Kativik Regional Council meeting in Akulivik.

The communities owing the most rent include:
• Akulvik— $846,588;
• Inukjuak— $1.3 million;
• Kangiqsualujjuaq— $1.4 million;
• Kuujjuaq— $2.3 million;
• Kuujjuaraapik— $1.5 million; and
• Puvirnituq— $1.3 million.

More than one in three social housing tenants didn’t pay their rent this year in Kuujjuaraapik, with nearly as high rates of arrears in Kangiqsualujjuaq and Umiujaq.

During a discussion about how to divide up social housing to be built in 2011, some councillors raised the possibility of excluding communities with high arrears from any new social housing construction.

It’s frustrating to have long waiting lists for housing when some tenants don’t pay their rent, a councillor noted.

Joseph Annahatak, the vice-chairperson of the KRG, and other members of the KRG executive urged Nunavimmiut listening to the KRG meeting live on the Taqramiut Nipingat Inc. network to pay their rent.

As a last-ditch incentive, the KMHB recently sent out eviction notices to five of the tenants owing the highest amounts of unpaid rent.

Meanwhile, rents for social housing units are supposed to rise by eight per cent annually.