National Post: Stephen Harper to visit Nunavut next month

Iqaluit to host G8 finance ministers next February?

By NUNATSIAQ NEWS

Prime Minister Stephen Harper will visit Nunavut next month to announce that a new northern economic handout agency will be located in Iqaluit, the National Post newspaper reported July 14 in an unsourced story leaked to columnist John Ivison.

Ivison’s column also reports that Jim Flaherty, the federal finance minister, will host a meeting of G8 finance ministers in Iqaluit next February.

Harper last visited Nunavut during this past fall’s federal election campaign, when he gave a speech announcing his Conservative government would create a “new” economic development agency for the three northern territories.

The agency is to be built on the bones of an existing program called Strategic Investments In Northern Economic Development, or “SINED.”

SINED, created in 2004 by Paul Martin’s Liberal government, resulted in about $90 million in spending over five years on projects related to northern economic development.

Over the life of the program, Ottawa gave most of that money to other government departments and agencies, such as Natural Resources Canada, which received millions of dollars for geophysical mapping. The SINED program ended this past March 31.

The Tory replacement for SINED would spend $50 million over five years — which means each of the three territories would share about $10 million for each year of the program’s life.

While in the Arctic, Harper will view this year’s version of Operation Nanook, an annual air-sea-land exercise conducted by Canadian forces, the National Post reports.

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