Bears, booze, babies and hockey

AARON SPITZER

IQALUIT — After putting in many long hours poring over Nunavut’s budget, Nunavut’s MLAs and ministers decided to take most of last week off.

They now have one more week to wrap up the 2001-2002 budget before the next fiscal year begins.

Here’s a sample of what they talked about on the assembly floor over the last few weeks.

Busing to beat bears

Eastern Baffin communities need school buses to protect students from polar bears.

That’s the argument made by Uqqummiut MLA David Iqaqrialu.

In the Nunavut assembly Monday, Iqaqrialu told Education Minister Peter Kilabuk that children in Clyde River and Qikiqtarjuak are threatened by bears if they have to walk to school in the winter darkness.

Last year, Iqaqrialu said, a bear actually entered the school grounds.

Normally, school buses in Nunavut are funded based on the number of children in a community. Neither Qikiqtarjuak nor Clyde River are big enough to merit school buses.

Minister Kilabuk promised that he would take the issue of bear-danger into consideration when deciding how to dole out bus funding.

But, warned Kilabuk, “We can’t just go around giving buses to all communities.”

The Nunavut government’s 2000-2001 budget, however, provides for new school buses in Cape Dorset and Pangnirtung, at a cost of $125,000 a piece.

Mind the mine

The GN must start planning for the closure of Polaris Mine on Little Cornwallis Island, says Quttiktuq MLA Rebekah Williams.

Williams’ riding includes Resolute Bay, which is the community closest to the Polaris Mine on Little Cornwallis Island.

Williams said the Department of Sustainable Development must decide quickly how it will help the people hurt by the shutdown, which is scheduled for October of this year.

She also warned that the GN must help oversee the clean up of the mine-site to make sure that the remediation is done properly.

In response to the MLAs statements, Sustainable Development Minister Olayuk Akesuk pledged help for the Quttiktuq but admitted that planning for the closure hasn’t begun.

“I know there will be a great impact on the people in the communities surrounding the mine,” he said. “My officials will be meeting with the people in those communities to see how we can best support them.”

He said he would try to ensure that residents find work helping to close down and clean up the site.

Liquor stores an option

Liquor stores may be an option for Nunavut, said Kelvin Ng, the minister in charge of the territory’s liquor board.

Permitting alcohol sales in certain Nunavut communities is just one of the possibilities the liquor board will be considering during an upcoming tour of the territory, Ng told MLAs last week.

Ng said he asked liquor-board commissioner Goo Arlooktoo to conduct consultations to determine what changes should be made to the Nunavut Liquor Act.

The board will be travelling to nine communities, in which alcohol is either prohibited, restricted or “open.”

The towns scheduled for the consultations are Arviat, Baker Lake, Cambridge Bay, Cape Dorset, Gjoa Haven, Iqaluit, Kugluktuk, Pond Inlet and Rankin Inlet.

“The illegal acquisition and sale of liquor is a serious issue that also needs to be addressed as part of the board consultations,” Ng said.

Hockey meltdown

Global warming is cutting into Nunavut’s hockey season.

That’s what many MLAs have been telling the Nunavut government during the current session of the legislative assembly.

“Our climate and weather is changing,” said Kugluktuk MLA Donald Havioyak last week. “The changing weather is having a detrimental effect on the use of our arenas. In the past we could start playing hockey in October and the ice was still good in April.”

This doesn’t just harm the hockey skills of Nunavummiut, the MLAs say.

It also poses a danger to northern youth, who often get into trouble or become prone to suicide when they don’t have activities like hockey to keep them busy.

Havioyak called for communities to receive artificial-ice arenas, where hockey could be played year-round.

But he emphasized that arenas must be awarded in an equitable way.

“It would be difficult to support a situation where only one or two select communities have their needs met immediately without solid guarantees in the House that other communities would have a fair shot at the same assistance,” he said.

Currently, Iqaluit is the only community in Nunavut with an arena with artificial ice.

Singing against suicide

Inuk singer Susan Aglukark is using her music and her own life experiences to dissuade youth from committing suicide.

Aglukark, an Arviat native, travelled to Kivalliq communities earlier this month to perform her “Unsung Heroes Tour.”

The tour, in partnership with the GN’s Health department and the Kivalliq Inuit Association, is an anti-suicide campaign directed at youth.

Announcing the tour in the legislative assembly last week, Health Minister Ed Picco said Aglukark would try to motivate youth to be positive about themselves.

“Susan Aglukark is widely respected for her frank approach to issues such as suicide and abuse in all forms. It is exciting that Ms. Aglukark will be working with us on suicide prevention by reaching out to youth in such a creative manner,” Picco said.

Aglukark plans to follow up on her talk with the students by creating a website where she can regularly communicate with youth.

Women’s council named

On March 8 — International Women’s Day — the Nunavut government announced the appointment of the territory’s new Status of Women Council.

Peter Kattuk, the minister of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth, welcomed the new members in the legislative assembly last week.

The following people will sit on the council: Martha Hickes of Rankin Inlet; Madeleine Qumuatuq of Pangnirtung; Maureen Doherty of Iqaluit; Annie Napayok of Whale Cove; Rhoda Nanook of Taloyoak, Leah Qaqasiq of Arctic Bay, Annie Tatty of Rankin Inlet, Rhoda Arreak of Pond Inlet and Helen Maksagak of Cambridge Bay.

The council’s new status-of-women advisor, Rhoda Ungalaq, is scheduled to join the department on March 12.

“CLEY recognizes the current issues affecting women in Nunavut. And as a government department, we are proud to support action on these issues,” minister Kattuk told the assembly.

More midwifery wanted

Nunavut should move toward developing midwifery programs, said Tunnuniq MLA Jobie Nutarak.

“The communities would like to see midwifery practiced… because of course pregnant women have to be out of the community for a whole month before they give birth and return to their communities,” Nutarak said.

Health Minister Ed Picco admitted that having more women give birth in their communities would be good for Nunavut. Currently, nearly a quarter of his department’s budget is spent on sending women south to deliver their children.

Currently, Rankin Inlet is the only community in Nunavut with an Inuit midwife program.

But Picco warned that midwife programs must be able to ensure that births are safe for both Nunavummiut mothers and babies.

He worries that babies are born less healthy in Nunavut than they were years ago, because mothers are younger and many of them smoke during pregnancy.

On the road again

The Nunavut government wants federal money so it can study the best route for a road to the Kivalliq.

Jack Anawak, the GN’s transportation minister, said officials in his department are preparing a funding proposal to pay for a route-selection study for a highway linking Manitoba and the Kivalliq region.

The study would also explore design standards for the all-weather road, Anawak said.

The study will examine the potential social and environmental impacts of the road, and will offer better estimates of how much the highway might cost.

Anawak said he thinks the study itself will require about $1 million.

Anawak said he has had meetings about the highway with the federal ministers of both transport and northern affairs, along with Manitoba’s minister of highways.

House hunting

If the Nunavut government were fully staffed it couldn’t house all its employees.

This week in the Nunavut assembly, under pressure from Iqaluit MLA Hunter Tootoo, Finance Minister Kelvin Ng admitted that the GN has fewer dwellings than it has jobs.

“If… you wanted to go to 90 per cent or 100 per cent of staffing, then we wouldn’t have sufficient units,” Ng said.

But currently the GN is only about three-quarters staffed, and thus the housing shortage isn’t a critical issue, he said.

The GN has long stated that achieving full staffing is one of its pressing goals.

Ng said that the current Public Works budget contains funding to lease additional staff-housing units.