Lots of unfinished business on public safety committee agenda
Iqaluit council made the right move keeping body alive but should make it more effective
Iqaluit’s public safety committee, seen here at its April 2024 meeting, is still in business after city councillors turned down a recommendation on Tuesday that would have disbanded it in favour of creating an inter-agency working group. (File photo by Jeff Pelletier)
Considering how Iqaluit’s public safety committee got its start, it’s a relief that city council spared it from being disbanded.
There’s still a lot of unfinished business for the city committee that focuses on “current and emerging public safety issues.”
In a nailbiter at Tuesday’s council meeting, Mayor Solomon Awa broke a tie, casting the deciding vote to keep the committee alive.
An assessment by a different committee — the governance and priorities committee — led to a recommendation to “revise” the public safety committee, turning it into an “inter-agency administrative working group” — whatever that is. Fortunately, that recommendation was rejected.
People can’t walk home from the beer and wine store without the fear of getting robbed, but politicians and bureaucrats were fretting over the distinction between a committee and a working group.
It’s a distinction without a difference. People want leadership on safety concerns, not quibbling about the makeup of the committee … or is it a working group?
Other versions of a public safety committee have come and gone in Iqaluit over the years. The most recent attempt to revive it came in 2021, partly in response to the violent deaths of two women in the city that occurred in 2019.
Then-mayor Kenny Bell told a Nunatsiaq News reporter in March 2021, “For a city that is growing like ours, public safety is obviously paramount.”
Since the committee was reconstituted in 2021, it hasn’t exactly set the world on fire. It held two meetings a year from 2022 to 2023. In 2021, it scheduled two, but only held one.
Its October 2024 meeting lasted just 17 minutes.
At its April meeting, the most urgent piece of business was to call for a review of the city’s animal control bylaw. As it turned out, city staff were already working on the changes to shorten the waiting period before killing loose dogs rounded up by bylaw officers.
Committee attendance has been an issue, according to a report councillors considered Tuesday. At many of its meetings, just over half of its members — who are a mix of councillors, members of the public and city staff — showed up.
There is a need for an avenue for the public to bring safety concerns to the attention of councillors. Some of the issues the committee has considered include whether the stacking of wood outside of homes poses a fire hazard, and a desire for more lighted and maintained walking trails.
Those are relatively minor issues, but airing them out gives a chance to make a community more livable.
While councillors commended the RCMP for recently stepping up its enforcement of liquor laws to curb public drunkenness, it’s hard to believe it’s time to unfurl the “Mission Accomplished” banner.
And if you look at the Nunavut Court of Justice docket, there are a lot of people facing drunk driving charges.
If the committee is looking for issues to sink its teeth into, those are just a couple of ideas.
Just because it hasn’t been terribly effective in the past doesn’t mean it’s not needed.
Corey again overlooks a key point: many of the issues listed aren’t within the City’s authority to fix.
Matters like addictions, homelessness, mental-health services, liquor regulation, and RCMP operations fall under territorial or federal jurisdiction, not municipal. The Public Safety Committee can discuss these problems and advocate for action, but it cannot direct the RCMP, create treatment programs, or change territorial policies. Expecting the PSC to “finish” items it has no legal power over sets up an inaccurate picture of municipal responsibility.
The PSC should absolutely improve its meeting consistency and follow-up — but its actual mandate is limited to things like by-law updates, lighting, crosswalks, and local enforcement priorities. The bigger safety issues in Iqaluit require GN and federal engagement, not just municipal committees.
If we want real progress, we need to recognize where responsibility lies and push the right levels of government to deal with it, and not place blame on the one body that has no authority over the problems being discussed.
It would help if Nunatsiaq News took the time to clearly communicate which levels of government are responsible for what, so the public debate can be grounded in facts rather than misplaced expectations. All levels of government need to work together on public safety but you can’t hold the City accountable for powers it does not have.
I think it would be very useful for NN to focus on what the city/territory/feds can actually do for whatever issue is being talked about overall. Often there is a topic wondering why government level A/B/C isn’t doing whatever to fix a particular issue, when that government has no say or power or influence over the issue being discussed.
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And in this instance, rather than saying “whatever that is” about the proposed change, it would be useful if NN could actually use the definition given, and mention the whole point of this resolution was not to disband this committee and make town more unsafe, but restructure it to allow for more meetings, and focusing on stuff the different groups would actually have the power to change.
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This complaint around the committee – that it doesn’t meet enough and isn’t effective enough, was what the change was hoping to address. But people missed the point, including NN.
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All that aside, I also think a lot of the public safety hysteria is overblown – I walk to the B&W a few times a week and I haven’t been scared once. And I think it’s worth the city considering stacking firewood against houses etc, given how strained our firefighting services are and how rare housing is… If someone stacks some firewood next to a building and it catches fire, that could mean a few units of people up in smoke, with no replacement construction to come for 3+ years… it may not be as eye catching as the headlines and fear over the B&W store, but I would argue that is more of a danger overall, and ultimately one a municipal government can actually fix.
It would first require Nunatsiaq News themselves to understand the levels of government and delegations of authority within Nunavut’s governance structure. Dude can’t even contemplate what an inter-agency committee could be despite public safety being an inter-agency matter.
You know how they got National Guard in USA cities to keep them safe maybe they can something like that for Iqaluit. Just a thought?
So you want to become a militarized state. Obviously you have never seen armed military patrols maintaining order. This problem although troublesome does not require that level of response. Few situations do in a civilsed society.
I think government and the city should discuss public consumption of alcohol. Enforce the consumption of alcohol, perhaps new beer nd wine cops that pours all alcohol in front of people drinking in public. That will probably reduce the number of public confrontations. Does not sound being civil but if GN is not going to close the store need to start enforcing public intoxication. This will help improve safety of public
City council made the right call in preserving Iqaluit’s Public Safety Committee. Now it needs to make the committee worth keeping. Rather than arguing over whether it should be a “committee” or a “working group,” council should sharpen its mandate, strengthen attendance requirements, and ensure it focuses on issues that actually matter to residents — from safer walking routes to reducing alcohol-related violence.
The committee needs structure: a clear annual work plan, regular reporting to council, and dedicated staff support to prevent more 17-minute meetings. It also needs a way for the public to be heard, whether through an online portal or community meetings that bring residents’ concerns directly to the table. And it must work closely with the RCMP and service providers to ground its discussions in real data and real community needs.
The committee has struggled in the past, but the solution isn’t to dismantle it — it’s to reform it. If council gives it direction, accountability, and purpose, the Public Safety Committee can finally become what it was meant to be: a forum where Iqalummiut can raise concerns and see action taken.
Where is Kenny? I miss Iqaluit’s best ever mayor! Did he figure out that daycare situation after. He is a national treasure!
I have never encountered so many humans who love and embrace crime. So many humans who can’t stand the thought of criminals going to jail. So many humans who turn a blind eye to crime against children and women. Always an excuse like for example:: “my uncles cousins sisters brothers dad’s father had a rough time when he was 7” so he can’t go to jail for the assault of a child. We should all leave and let the locals eat each other