Iqaluit company awarded $46M contract for new hangar
Transport Canada announces Pilitak Enterprises Ltd. as the winning bidder
A new National Aerial Surveillance Program airplane hangar will be built in Iqaluit after Transport Canada awarded the contract to local firm Pilitak Enterprises Ltd. (File photo)
Transport Canada has awarded an Iqaluit-based company a contract worth nearly $46 million to build a new National Aerial Surveillance Program aircraft hangar at Iqaluit’s airport.
It announced Tuesday that construction company Pilitak Enterprises Ltd. is the winning bidder.
The project will enable local training and job opportunities during the project’s construction over the next 18 months, the announcement said.
The National Aerial Surveillance Program was created in 1991. It uses a small fleet of planes to detect Canadian marine habitat pollution such as oil spills and also tracks whale migrations in order to help protect them from marine traffic.
The program also plays a secondary role in police investigations, search and rescue missions and national security.
Recently, one of the program’s planes was involved in a search and rescue operation in Iqaluit’s Frobisher Bay after more than 20 sea cans spilled into the water during transport from a sealift.
In addition to the four bright-red Dash 8 and Dash 7 planes in its fleet, the program uses drones and satellites as a part of its environmental monitoring.
The National Aerial Surveillance Program is a branch of Canada’s Ocean Protections Plan.
Instead of reinventing the wheel, or in this case HANGAR’s. Why don’t they retrofit the FOL base in Rankin Inlet. It is empty all the time.
Perhaps because it has a military purpose???
The FOL hangar and the barracks have to be ready on 24 hours’ notice so they can’t be used by anyone other then the DND.
Sadly the FOL Facility in Rankin is a long long way from being 24 hours ready. The fire supression system in the hangar designed for the f18s has been out of commision for years. The arrestors for the f18s on runway 31 were removed years ago and enquiries into utilization of the barracks over the years the response has alwyas been it would entail several weeks to get them open and ready for use. I agree with tommy bruce, would have made total sense to use that facility for a fraction of the cost,
Is Pilitak Enterprises Ltd. the same company as Kudlik?
I’ve been trying to address this in the comment section but Nunatsiaq is moderating publicly available information.
Same workers, same planes, same heavy equipment, same sub-contractors as the former Kudlik. This makes a lot of questions.
This is supposedly an Inuit owned company.
Anyone know who the Inuk “owner” is?
My understanding is that two janitors are the nominal owners, but a management contract puts control of the company and its profits elsewhere.
I’m guessing the yearly report will be, yes there is less ice this year as compared to last. Also how much carbon footprint each flight will have?
Inuit ownership of a construction company without having Inuit engineers, architects and accountants running the operation is the worst kind of tokenism. Rocking chair money for the “owners’ as well as for outsiders who do or at least pretend to do the real work. You need to have real professionals coming out of university, then working for a successful company so as to learn how to run a real business, and only then build one from the ground up, with actual savings put up as the initial equity capital. Hey, you can even get to be governor general without any qualifications for the job. If you’re Inuit. How many Inuit do real work at Rideau Hall?
In Nunavik , we call these “POTATO COMPANY ” brown on the outside, white on the inside.
Let US inuits Rule The World, More Freebe, Free Rent Free Everything, Food & Furniture Too, Kuyenamiq For Your White Generosity. Open more beer store More Drugs, More of my many Cousins Pusher/Dealer so we can all drop off school and complaint and “miss weeks of work” as Alchool Sick days and then wonder why we been replace by others not like us, and Scream out Loud Racist Slogan to all Nasty Qabloona and Purtikit, Right ? we gotta smart up and stop blaming other for our own Bad Bahavior and Violence. Stop Hating, clean up our Life.
As long as you have an NNI policy, this will always be the case.
While I do think that the Inuit Firm Registry is a bit of a joke (most of these companies have no Inuit ownership beyond a figurehead person who is in place simply to get the firm on to the registry as being “Inuit-Owned”), it’s not really possible to employ Inuit engineers, architects, etc without Inuit actually going to post-secondary to get the education and qualifications required to work in these fields.
Make no mistake – if companies like Pilitak, NCC, etc could find Inuit to fill these roles, they would hire them in a heartbeat. There is a major benefit to these companies to employ Inuit. The NNI policy provides them with significant advantages in the tender process should they employ more Inuit.