City of Iqaluit denies Northmart manager’s request to forgive water debt
Months-long leak led to skyrocketing bills; council balks at suggestion city should front costs
Iqaluit city councillors denied a request Tuesday from the city’s Northmart manager to forgive inflated water bills from late last year caused by a leak under one of the company’s properties. (File photo)
Iqaluit city council declined a request this week from North West Company to help pay inflated water bills caused by a leak under one of the company’s stores.
Alan Lawrie, who manages Iqaluit’s Northmart store, told council at its meeting Tuesday the company became aware of the problem in November.
The North West Company head office sent a memo to the Iqaluit office asking about monthly water bills that had ballooned from an average of $1,700 to more than $7,500 in September and skyrocketed to more than $24,000 in October.
From September to December, the total amount owing was more than $56,000, close to $50,000 more than usual for the period, Lawrie said.
He asked council for an unspecified debt forgiveness to help cover these costs.
The North West Company owns Iqaluit’s Northmart as well as multiple buildings in the city which it rents to residents.
Lawrie said his company contacted the city’s finance office Nov. 16 to ask about the unusually high water consumption, suspecting it may have been an error on the city’s part.
The city’s finance officer, Peter Van Strien, responded to the North West Company’s concerns Dec. 7, confirming October’s bill was correct, Lawrie said. Van Strien suggested there could be leaks.
Company representatives then visited building 194, next door to Arctic Ventures and one block north of their NC Store location, where they found a broken copper pipe under the residential building.
The leak was fixed, then reported to the city.
Lawrie noted that at no time had the city contacted the North West Company “about this high consumption,” he said.
Several councillors seemed to bristle at the notion the city should be on the hook to front the water bill.
“I take a little bit of offence at the comment you made … implying that the onus is on the city to notify you that your consumption increased,” said Coun. Kyle Sheppard.
“It is not the role of the city to notify you that the maintenance of your equipment is faulty.”
Sheppard said there is no provision within the City of Iqaluit to allow forgiveness of a debt of this nature. He said payment would be North West Company’s responsibility.
Iqaluit’s Northmart was partly the focus of a Feb. 23 CBC Fifth Estate investigation that raised questions about price increases at the store in late 2022.
Deputy Mayor Kim Smith wanted to know, “Why would a company that makes so much money need the citizens of Iqaluit to pay off this debt?”
She read out figures from the company’s annual reports stating for the year ending January 2023, the company had $2.3 billion in sales and combined U.S. and Canadian operations earnings of $146 million.
“I can’t speak for the entire company, but what I can tell you is that each community [store] is independent,” Lawrie said.
After several more councillors chimed in, Mayor Solomon Awa thanked Lawrie for coming and said, “It sounds like tonight we are not supporting your request.”
All unforeseen expenses eat into bonuses. Is there any wonder they are asking for leniency.
And it’s Iqalungmiut who will pay off this bill.
If each North West Company store is independent, why are prices set from the crowd down south?
Asking that taxpayers cover their bill. Don’t they take enough from Iqaluit residents already?
Each store is Independent so that the wholesaler aka the northwest company can inflate the cost at that level and claim the cost of goods are high
Takes balls to ask that.
Imagine if someone asked Northern Store to forgive their debt.
Finally the hamlet council hot something right.
And Northern has the gall to imply the hamlet should have advised them of the increase
Northern management- you do get a monthly report called an invoice, don’t you? Try reading it and understand what is says in the usage column
Oh no, they will jack up the food prices again 🙁
For sure Iqaluit will have the price increases, I would have thought all that extra funding ppl received from Jordan Principal would please the NWC. NO, this hefty $$$ is not enough and ppl spend it at NWC stores. Greed, can somebody tell me say; like at Arviat store operations how much a bonus would be for the store manager per year?
And it seems that only the southern people that work for the northwest company get housing free of charge. Groceries free of charge. And their pay big. I haven’t heard one inuk say, the pay and benefits are good from the northwest company ever. Not one inuk.
What shame for a multi billion dollar company. They rake in multi million each week from Inuit and government. And yet they can’t pay a 50,000 bill.
Come tax return time I wonder how much WE financial makes?
Their cash load into we cards are supposed to be free of charge. If you get the documents for your we card, you can see we financial says zero dollar loading fee. But they take 3 dollars off plus more for using we financial. They make dollars for literally nothing
When in Iqaluit, make AVs (Co-op) your choice for groceries….
28% interest on a skidoo purchase, charges for phone calls to ask for help with We accounts… They have tons of money.
If the past has taught us anything, its that NM doesnt care remember when they increased water prices during the 2021 water crisis haha, full circle moment…. anywho, the price of bread will be double tommorow, they gotta make that 50k somehow.
Wow, I finally understand why the price of ground beef has skyrocketed to around $30.00.
So glad the City said no, but the sad thing is we all will pay for it, prices will double and triple over the coming months to make up for their loss.
That’s really a scummy request from NWC. Maybe Iqaluit residents should repay them by shopping at the other stores instead?
It’s funny how this article comes up just right after The Fifth Estate did an investigation on their sky rocketing prices…..Tax Season is upon us and watch North Mart will increase their prices on their on demand products! Lets all support Baffin Canners and shop there instead!
We hear a lot about grocery stores here and in the South making these exorbinant profit, but I always wonder, if business is so lucrative, why isn’t there more competition. You’d think Wal Mart would be up here, or Loblaws. And same for the South. Why isnt there more stores opening if its so profitable? Is it lobbying, like in other oligopolies? What is it?
They say the population is too small for places like wal mart or even a food fare.
In business, there’s general consensus that 5% is a low margin for profit and 10% is a good margin. In this article, it states that NW made a profit of
146 million off of 2.3 billion in sales. Thats a profit of 6.3%. Perhaps if people want to get angry about something, they should look at how much tax they’re paying and what they get in return. At least in the retail world, you don’t have to hand over your money if you dont want to. Not saying that Northmart shouldn’t have to pay their bill, and I agree with what a lot of the other posters say, but if profits were as great as you all think it is, there would be a lot more than just the co-op and northmart here.
Where would Walmart or Loblaws even build a store? there is so little land available. Even Northmart would not be there if they had to start from nothing.
Looks like nobody ashed the simple question:
Did anybody tnotice he water running out from underneath their building for probably months on end ?????
Dahhh!!!!
Simple building ownership maintenance would have taken care of the problem before they would have the gall to come begging to the City.
That`s one of the problem in the North. Too many people live in a unit in which they have no sense of responsability because they do not pay for the consequences of anything. Be it public housing, government housing or employers units. That`s one of the reasons why everything is so expensive in the North.
Thanks
its despicable how ppl treat their public housing unit, the damages, I wish I could live in one for 1000 a month, I would wash the floor everyday, keep it clean, 65$ a MONTH???? and you wreck your units…..
What does your comment have to do with this article? I believe you took a wrong turn. You’re looking for the Rant ‘n Rave group on Facebook. Be sure to make your own post rather than trying to hijack someone else’s, like you tried to do here.
City on Northmart debt relief: no way, it’s your responsibility.
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City in Caribou cabs saying people are pretending to be elders to abuse the elder rate so they’d like an increase: WE WILL RAISE THE ELDER RATE 40%.
So think of Northmart as the Walmart of the North. Never in the south do you have a mom and pop shop compete against Walmart. The mom and pop shops of the North are Northern Shopper, Arctic Consultants, Baffin Canners, DJs and Arctic Consultants. They have gained market share but are never mentioned in the media reports on high prices. They deliver the subsidy to the consumers while paying a high cost of freight because they do less volume then NWC.
NWC with their practices have left this gap. The other issue is the banking systems and lack of credit in Nunavut that would allow people to order from the online retailers.
Stick to the NWC and use the alternatives
I couldn’t agree more with you on your sentiment of using the alternatives to the main big name store! A perfect example of this is when Air Sarvaq was trying to penetrate the aviation market and Canadian North and First Air ‘suddenly’ had seat sales. Everyone flocked to the cheaper airfare and now we are stuck with a monopoly airline who NEVER has seat sales anymore and if they do have promo codes, try and use them….you’ll notice they’ve already raised the prices to astronomical costs so the promo code gets you SLIGHTLY under a normal round trip cost.
If you need something that is only sold at Northmart, ask Ventures to order it, they’ll most likely do it!
I agree with everything other than calling Ventures a small local store. They are run by Arctic Cooperatives Limited out of Winnipeg.
Lmao . Good one
NWC has been practicing gouging since 1700s. there’re good at it; best there is, no shame to ask for bill write-off of just over 50K, their normal sales intake on Child Credit days. One day sales to pay the bill, ARV? about 80K sale in one day…..