Preserving Nanisivik’s infrastructure

Infrastructure. Ask any territorial or municipal government official in Nunavut, and they’ll tell you that Nunavut doesn’t have enough of it.

For more than two years, territorial leaders have told Ottawa that Nunavut needs more money to pay for the physical structures that modern governments need to meet the needs of their citizens. This includes sewage and water treatment plants, wharves and bridges, airport runways and telecommunication links. To that you could add subsidized social housing, bigger schools and better health care buildings.

None of these are luxuries. They’re all needed to meet basic human needs.

The political arrangement that we call Canada would have disappeared a long time ago had federal and provincial governments not spent large amounts of money on the Canadian Pacific Railway, the Trans-Canada Highway, and our national telecommunications system. Without government investment, Telesat Canada, a former Crown corporation that’s now part of Bell Canada’s media empire, would never have come into existence and northern Canada would still lack basic access to most electronic forms of communication.

So when northern leaders say Nunavut not only needs more public infrastructure spending, but also deserves it, they have a point — especially when they cite other regions of Canada that could never have been developed without generous government spending.

But if it’s true that Nunavut deserves, or is somehow morally entitled to received generous amounts of federal infrastructure money, then it follows that Nunavut is in no position to throw existing infrastructure away.

That, however, is what may happen at Nanisivik if the affected parties aren’t able to reach a consensus on what to do after the mine there ceases to exist next year.

Breakwater Resources, whose zinc mine at Nanisivik is set to close in the fall of 2002, has committed itself to an environmental clean-up that includes flattening its valuable infrastructure and restoring the site to close to its original condition. Breakwater’s property there includes staff housing, recreation facilities, Nanisivik’s famous dome building, and other structures.

In addition, there’s a deep-sea dock, managed by the Coast Guard, and an airstrip, managed by the territorial government, capable of handling Boeing 737 jets.

The Nunavut government should not allow this infrastructure to go to waste. Besides, most if not all Arctic Bay residents are likely to support the idea of using the site for a new purpose, especially if it replaces jobs they’ll lose when the mine closes.

The first tough question though is this: What should the new purpose be? There are many possibilities: a low-security correctional centre, a residential school or college, a trades training centre, a tourist lodge, and so on. A second tough question is where to find operation and maintenance money to pay for the site’s new role. Another tough question that may arise is whether the site ought to be developed as an organized community under Nunavut’s municipal laws, as either a settlement or a hamlet.

It seems reasonable to believe that Breakwater, which is not doing well financially, might be willing to make a deal with the Nunavut government, especially if such an arrangement were to reduce its environmental bill.

Breakwater should certainly pay for a thorough clean-up of its tailings pond and any other toxic materials at Nanisivik. But why should it be forced to pay for the demolition of usable infrastructure? Perhaps it could be persuaded to sell the buildings to the government of Nunavut for one dollar.

JB