Co-ops upset by bed and breakfast proposal

Co-ops in Nunavut are “incredulous” that the GN has adopted a policy that could threaten the economic viability of co-op hotels in Nunavut.

In a document tabled in the assembly last month by Hunter Tootoo, MLA for Iqaluit Centre, they direct the GN to “ensure that all government employees use commercial hotel facilities for all government travel.”

They are upset about a call for proposals issued by the department of public works on March 31, 2003, for an addition to a school in Rankin Inlet.

“In the call for proposals [the GN] issued a directive for bidders that they no longer had to use commercial accommodation (a hotel) for this or any other construction project; that they could now stay in a “bed and breakfast” facility (a commercial residence),” the co-op document says. “That small change in the wording of a proposal call will have drastic results for our member co-operatives operating Inns North hotels.”

The co-ops argue that they have invested their own money to build hotels that, other than government staff and contractors working on GN projects, receive very little traffic.

They also say that hotels must operate to a higher standard than bed and breakfasts.

At the 2003 annual general meeting of Arctic Co-operatives Ltd., of Winnipeg, members directed the board “to approach the highest levels of the Government of Nunavut, including the legislature and all the elected officials, to reverse this change in the accommodation policy for contractors.”