Small communities are the key

It’s ironic that the strongest grassroots lobbying for a credit union system in Nunavut is in Iqaluit — the community where such a service is least needed.

Despite the Bank of Montreal’s unconscionable decision to dump its Iqaluit branch, Iqaluit residents, after all, still enjoy access to branches maintained by the Royal Bank of Canada and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

This is much more than what residents in nearly every other Nunavut community have ever had. Except for Rankin Inlet and Cambridge Bay, the country’s chartered banks have never opened branches in any Nunavut community outside of Iqaluit.

In most of these places, people still use an inadequate, extremely limited range of financial services offered by co-ops and Northern stores. There, most people hand over their pay cheques to be kept as account balances, earning no interest, unprotected by deposit insurance. Those are the places where people face the greatest barriers in getting small business loans and mortgages.

It’s people living in Nunavut’s small communities, clearly, who need the kind of access to banking services that a credit union network could provide.

So when Greg O’Neill, a consultant who works for Arctic

Co-operatives Ltd., earlier this month urged credit union backers in Iqaluit to reach out to Nunavut’s smaller communities, he was making a vital point.

A single credit union based only in Iqaluit is a non-starter, unlikely to win much support from the Nunavut government and other bodies. If Nunavut is to have this, then it must be a credit union network with outlets located in a range of communities, and with a presence in each of the three administrative regions.

That is what Arctic Cooperatives Ltd. proposed about 15 years ago: a system that would start out in its first year with credit unions in six to eight communities, supported by a credit union centrally based in the territorial capital. After that, more communities would be added to the system.

Iqaluit is home to 20 per cent of Nunavut’s population. There are as many people residing in Iqaluit right now as there are in the entire Kitikmeot region. Iqaluit is, without doubt, an important place.

But the heart and soul of Nunavut is to be found in the small communities. Those are the people who elect most of our MLAs, and other political leaders.

That’s why the Atuqtuarvik Corp. and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., in their own entirely separate search for a new banking system, are placing a high priority on service to the small communities. As we have reported in past issues of Nunatsiaq News, these two Inuit organizations are now examining a variety of proposals for an alternative banking system.

With its emphasis on financial education and member ownership, combined with the support it would likely get from Nunavut’s current system of community-based co-operatives, a credit union system is an attractive alternative. But it’s not the only one. It’s likely that NTI will also look at proposals for a territorial savings and loan bank, or some type of territorial trust company.

NTI’s decision on which alternative to support won’t be entirely decisive, but it will be highly influential. Their final decision, which won’t be made until the organization’s annual general meeting is held in Rankin Inlet later this fall, will be based on their assessment of which system best meets the needs of Inuit living in Nunavut’s small communities.

The needs of the small communities are key to whichever alternative banking system finally emerges. Without those needs, there would really be no other reason for creating one. JB