Council drops motion banning “undesirables”

DENISE RIDEOUT

Iqaluit city council proposed a controversial resolution this week that would require territorial inmates to leave Iqaluit and return to their home communities upon release, and prevent medical patients from lingering in town after their treatment ends.

But the motion was dropped before a vote could be taken.

It arose out of a concern by some councillors that the capital city has become a dumping ground for released convicts.

They also suggested Iqaluit is becoming overburdened with people who travel to the city for medical treatment or to visit relatives and never leave.

Members of the Niksiit committee, which is responsible for social and health issues in Iqaluit, introduced the motion during the Jan. 14 council meeting. Their intention, they said, was to prevent Iqaluit from becoming a home to convicted criminals, the mentally ill and unemployed people.

The motion read:

“Whereas the City of Iqaluit has been used as a dumping ground for individuals from other communities, overburdening our community resources with many problems involved,

“Be it resolved that the City of Iqaluit Council urge the Government of Nunavut, especially the department of health and social services and the department of education’s income support division, to repatriate their clients as soon as it is feasible;

“Be it further resolved that the City of Iqaluit Council urge the Nunavut government’s department of justice that when it administers its sentencing to inmates serving at the Baffin Correctional Centre and Issumaqsungitukuvik, that the judge word the sentencing to include ‘the sentence term is only complete when the inmate is physically returned to the community they originated from.’”

The motion was dropped after council decided it probably wouldn’t survive a legal test. However, it sparked much debate around the council table.

The concern arose from a 2002 incident involving David Nakashook of Cambridge Bay. In November, the hamlet council of Cambridge Bay requested that Nakashook, who was convicted of sexual assault in 2001, be banned from returning to the community upon his release from prison.

Because he served his time at Baffin Correctional Centre in Iqaluit, it was assumed the man would stay in the capital city.

When Iqaluit city councillors heard of the banishment order they requested a meeting with justice officials to ask that released prisoners not be left in Iqaluit.

Ron McCormick, director of corrections for the justice department, appeared before city council this week to explain the procedures for releasing inmates.

He told council that all inmates receive a plane ticket back to their home communities upon their release. But they are not required to use the ticket.

“Once a person is released from custody, we don’t have any jurisdiction over them and they can go to whichever community they choose,” McCormick said.

But, he pointed out, very few prisoners turn down a plane ticket.

As an example, he said of the 116 people released from BCC between July and December 2002, only four didn’t fly back to their home communities.

Two moved to southern Canada. Only two stayed in Iqaluit. Both of the men had been in a work program at the halfway house and were offered jobs with construction companies upon their release.

But the statistics did little to calm some city councillors’ concerns.

Councillor Glenn Williams said public safety was his main priority. “Four prisoners might not sound like a lot, but to me that number is significant,” he said.

Williams also said it didn’t make sense to release prisoners “into an environment where substances are easily accessible — the same substances that many have been the cause of their arrest in the first place.”

The debate about inmates soon ballooned into a larger discussion about welfare recipients and the mentally ill.

Several city councillors pointed out that sometimes patients come to Iqaluit for medical treatment and decide to stay. Deputy Mayor Kirt Ejesiak added that sometimes people come to visit relatives, become a nuisance, get kicked out and then have nowhere to go.

Situations like that are a burden on the city’s resources and services, they said.

But the entire discussion irritated councillor Chris Wilson. He accused city councillors of having a “not in my backyard” mentality — and he didn’t like it.

Wilson said councillors should understand that Iqaluit is a capital city and residents of smaller communities must often come here for jobs, schooling, medical treatment and other services.

Council decided to ask the departments of justice and health and social services for statistics on how many of their clients come to Iqaluit and don’t return to their home community.