ATV bylaw faces challenge

DENISE RIDEOUT

Iqaluit’s proposed law to crack down on reckless ATV drivers is stuck in what one city councillor calls a “northern challenge.”

The ATV bylaw is aimed at increasing public safety, but some city councillors worry it’s forgetting that Iqaluit is a northern town where snowmobiles are generally used to go hunting, not to play around on.

In November, administrators at city hall proposed putting stricter rules in Iqaluit’s All-Terrain Vehicle Bylaw to address public safety and outlaw loud, souped-up snowmobiles. It takes a harsh stance against reckless driving and speeding and includes heftier fines for violations.

But debates over some of the rules, mainly those to do with hunters, has stalled the proposed new rules from taking effect.

“It seems like we’re caught in a northern challenge,” councillor Keith Irving said at the May 28 council meeting.

Other councillors said it’s a touchy subject to force hunters, many of whom never wear helmets when they hunt, to either buy a helmet or face getting fined. “It’s not relevant to ask us to wear helmets out on the land,” councillor Simon Nattaq said in Inuktitut.

“Maybe it’s relevant down South. I’m not sure if it is here.”

While the bylaw doesn’t have the power to tell hunters to wear helmets when they’re driving on lands outside of the city limits, it would require helmets when they’re travelling on roads in town. That means hunters who are driving on a road to get out onto the tundra would have to wear a helmet until they got outside of town.

But one resident, Greg Logan, said that rule doesn’t make sense. He made a presentation to city council asking them to consider exempting hunters from some of the strict rules it’s proposing.

“There are many hunters who do not or will not wear helmets when they go out on the land,” he told city councillors.

Deputy mayor Kirt Eejetsiak suggested that before council goes forward with the bylaw it should scratch the rule that requires hunters to wear helmets.

Asking hunters to register their snowmobiles and four-wheelers, as well as buy insurance, is another point of contention for some council members. They argued that hunters have traditionally never registered their vehicles, nor do they buy insurance.

“A lot of hunters have a beef about the insurance because that’s taking money away from them,” Nattaq said. He said few hunters see the purpose of spending what little money they have on insurance.

Because several issues are still not ironed out, city councillors will take another look at the proposed changes to the ATV bylaw. The city’s bylaw department is planning to look at other northern towns to see how they have crafted ATV rules and regulations.

Council is expected to discuss the bylaw again at its June 11 meeting.