Iqaluit council to consider smoking ban

MIRIAM HILL

IQALUIT — The City of Iqaluit may stamp out smoking in public places.
Coun. Kirt Ejesiak says he’s considering proposing a bylaw to limit where people can have a cigarette.

At last week’s city council meeting, Ejesiak said he’d recently gone out to eat with his family and requested a non-smoking table. But the restaurant didn’t offer any, and when he explored the issue he found that Iqaluit doesn’t regulate public smoking.

He said in a territory where tobacco use is epidemic, he’d like to see a smoking ban in Iqaluit’s public places, such as restaurants and municipal buildings.

Coun. Chris Wilson, one of two smokers on council, backs the idea of a smoking ban, even in bars. He said a prohibition on smoking in public places is inevitable.

“When I came up here in 1989, you could smoke on the airplane, you could smoke in a cab, you could smoke in the Royal Bank… This is just Nunavut catching up with the rest of the country,” he said.

“On one hand you sort of say, ‘Am I a foolish politician to be considering this when 70 per cent of the voters are smoking?’ But we have a responsibility here to the ones that can’t vote, that are in hospitals, and it’s our medical system that being drained and it’s time we take a good look at it.”
— Keith Irving,
Iqaluit city councillor

“We may feel we’re different up here, but… using that product is causing a lot of physical health problems.”

Wilson worried that Iqaluit’s proposed ban — like those in some other municipalities — might not apply to private clubs like the Royal Canadian Legion or the Elks’ Club.

But the City of Ottawa’s non-smoking bylaw, which went into effect yesterday, covers that city’s Legion halls, as well as bingo halls, bowling alleys and the common areas of multiple-dwelling apartment buildings.

Coun. Keith Irving said he’s not convinced the ban will be as readily accepted as Wilson suggests, because a whopping percentage of the population smokes.

But he said that, since the GN is pushing public education on the dangers of smoking, the municipality must follow suit.

“On one hand you sort of say, ‘Am I a foolish politician to be considering this when 70 per cent of the voters are smoking?’ But we have a responsibility here to the ones that can’t vote, that are in hospitals, and it’s our medical system that being drained and it’s time we take a good look at it,” Irving said.

He thinks the council should find out how other aboriginal communities made the transition to smoke-free status. The other issue, he said, is how to enforce such a bylaw.

“I think whatever we do we have to be very conscious of how we’re going to enforce and what our capacity is to enforce these laws we set out.”

According to research compiled by the Canadian Cancer Society, as of Dec. 1, 2000, at least 45 Canadian municipalities had bylaws requiring smoke-free restaurants, and at least 31 had bylaws requiring smoke-free bars.

Some establishments in Iqaluit already offer smoke-free sections, such as the Fantasy Palace café and the restaurant at the Navigator Inn.

Others are beginning to follow suit. Ian Palmer, food and beverage manager at the Frobisher Inn, said his restaurant participated in Iqaluit’s smoke-free day on July 18 and was overwhelmed with the positive response.

“It was the busiest day we’ve had in about a year,” he said. “It was full, even the bar. They went along with it too. We were quite surprised.”

Sixty per cent of the tables in the restaurant are now non-smoking, and he said he’s heard no complaints from smokers about the move.

He said he hopes the restaurant will eventually have separate sections for smokers and non-smokers. But he said he opposes a blanket non-smoking bylaw.

Mary Jean Hopkins, manager of the Toonoonik Hotel, said her restaurant tried having non-smoking tables a year-and-a-half ago, but it didn’t work because smokers complained. She said she’s never heard any complaints that she doesn’t offer a non-smoking environment.

The government of Nunavut’s manager of health promotions, Ainiak Korgak, said he feels it’s difficult to ensure clean air if smoking and non-smoking sections are in the same room.

“(You) could be in non-smoking, but right next to your seat people are smoking, and the smoke goes everywhere,” he said.

Currently, municipal offices in Iqaluit are smoke-free, he said, but that’s done on a voluntary basis. If the city decides to make the bylaw mandatory, he suggested looking to bylaws passed in the South, where the rules are slowly phased in.

Wilson said he’s aware of the phase-in process in the South, but feels Iqaluit is too small for that. Once a decision is made to go non-smoking, it should happen immediately, he said.