Are co-ops really community-based?

A clarification is clearly required to your editorial last week, which refers to us as part of Nunavut’s “whining classes” for trying to determine our rights under Article 24. Need we remind your readers how all Inuit firms have been scratching our heads for years wondering what Article 24 is supposed to do for us?

We have legitimate concerns about the way a specific Government of Nunavut contract was handled last summer. For your newspaper this is just a story you know nothing about, but for us this is about business survival. Unfortunately, the only way we could get anyone’s attention to talk about our legitimate concerns was to go to court. Wasn’t the government’s NNI policy supposed to avoid just this type of thing from happening?

Even the media had no interest in this story until we went to court and now we have to suffer Nunatsiaq News making us out to be whiners. Your comments are not fair.

Our lawsuit is not about the local co-operatives, and we never alleged that they are not Inuit firms. The local co-op members in our communities are our neighbours. We know who they are.

But the GN policy uses the terms “Northern, Inuit, and Local.” You get part marks for each category and a full bid adjustment for having all of these qualifications.

We allege that Arctic Co-operatives Ltd. is not local and they are really the ones who went for the contracts, not the local members. That is what we have been told. If so, why would an umbrella organization in the South, which has the strength of many member organizations all across northern Canada, be given the same adjustment as a small, community-based business. We live or die on the opportunities that exist only in our communities. We can’t subsidize one member’s poor performance with strong profits in another community.

These are common-sense questions and concerns. Too bad we have to go to court to get answers.

Ike Haulli
Savik Enterprises Ltd.
Igloolik