Kattuk waffles on heating fuel issue

Peter Kattuk, the minister of public works and services, committed Friday to direct his department to test the supply of heating fuel in all communities in the Baffin and Kivalliq regions.

Cape Dorset was the first community to report problems with the fuel. Repulse Bay soon followed. However all communities in the two regions received fuel from the same sealift supply last summer.

Upon questioning from Iqaluit Centre MLA Hunter Tootoo, Kattuk theorized that the problems arose in the two communities after the fuel in the tank farms had run low and they began dipping in to the new supply.

“Last year, when we were dealing with the bad gas, the tank farms, the ones that had fuel left from the previous year, their problems didn’t arise until they used up the old supply,” he said.

“Once that had run low, their problems arose later.”

However, on Tuesday, Kattuk told the Baker Lake MLA that the department planned to test only Cape Dorset and Repulse Bay. McLean said his community has begun to report problems as well.

Kattuk promised to add Baker Lake to the list of communities to be tested.