Taloyoak hunters, trappers get $3.5M to protect local marine area
Money from Fisheries and Oceans will be used to buy ATVs, boats, and create 10 full-time jobs
Spence Bay Hunters and Trappers Association manager Jimmy Oleekatalik speaks in Iqaluit Aug. 12 on the approximately $3.5 million his HTA is receiving to protect the local marine environment. (Photo credit David Lochead)
The Spence Bay Hunters and Trappers Association will get approximately $3.5 million from the federal government to protect the marine area around Taloyoak.
The money is expected to help members of the hunters and trappers association monitor and gather knowledge of the local marine environment, according to a news release from the Department of Oceans and Fisheries.
That includes funding for boats, ATVs, radio towers to aid communication, and costs for lab analysis of material found on the land.
It will also fund the harvesting of traditional food.
Joyce Murray, minister of fisheries, oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, announced the funding Aug. 12 at the legislative assembly in Iqaluit.
“Supporting Inuit organizations and their members as they develop new knowledge and reinforce their capacity to manage local marine and coastal areas is a priority for our government,” she said.
The funding will be parcelled out over three years.
The Spence Bay Hunters and Trappers Association is also organizing efforts to create the Aviqtuuq Inuit Protected and Conserved Area near the community, which covers just over 85,000 square kilometres of the Boothia Peninsula and surrounding waters.
The funding will also support this initiative by creating an Inuit-led stewardship project for Aviqtuuq, which in turn will create 10 full-time jobs.
“We want to keep the traditional ways while also working with modern science so we can protect Aviqtuuq,” said Jimmy Oleekatalik, manager of the Spence Bay HTA.
If Aviqtuuq receives official designation, it will be protected from mining and exploration while remaining open to Inuit for traditional uses, Oleekatalik said.
I smell bonuses for the councilors.
take a break buddy you don’t need to be an … all time! Think of what this will do for the community and the land around it.
Assumptions as always, what if the funds were to diverted to your organization?
So a total of $3.5 million to fund– wait for it
-10 full time jobs
-boats
-ATVs
-radio towers to aid communication
– and lab fees
They do realize that they are in Taloyoak Nunavut, right?
What’s your point, I mean I am assuming you think this is a good thing. An economic incentive for a community that needs it. Do you have a better business plan or project that you can do with $10 million? by the way Mcdonald’s receives subsidies too even when they make billions in profit.
Businesses make money via customers not the government or it’s related agencies handing them money.
Then open up a business in Taloyoak, since you have all the answers, not everything has to make money, it’s a program that will have a better understanding of the marine environment that will be beneficial to a lot of community members and groups that want do some work in the area.
The only real benefit from this will be to keep a few people working and circulating cash in what is essentially an economic desert (ps, I am not against this, but we should recognize it for what it is).
I am wee bit skeptical that this ‘project’ will yield much or any of the useful information you say it will and that it advertises, but perhaps I am too cynical, we shall see.
I was just highlighting the repeated pattern of over promise under deliver. How much do you think it cost to install a radio tower (one) in Taloyoak. I don’t know for sure but after the consultations, geo-tech inspections for the selected sites, the purchase, shipping and insulation plus the commissioning, now multiply that by how many towers your are installing. Full time jobs to me means longer than 1 year, not some 6 month stint until the funding runs out, add in 4 or 5 boats complete with motors and safety equipment, and 4 or 5 Hondas how much do you really have for left if any.
This sounds like a lot of money going to something that will Hve zero oversight. Let’s not kid ourselves these boats and atv’s will be used to go out hunting. Well done HTO you win the lottery
And in about 18 moths to two years the equipment be either completely worn out or broken down and the HTO will return to DFO hat in hand asking for more money.
must be nice to know everything about everything, yes parts of it will be used to go out on the land and you assume communities are irresponsible and that they will waste your hard earn tax right?
“The Spence Bay Hunters and Trappers Association will get approximately $3.5 million from the federal government to protect the marine area around Taloyoak.”
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or…
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“The Spence Bay Hunters and Trappers Association will get approximately $3.5 million from the federal government to buy some toys to hunt and fish the marine area around Taloyoak”?
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What exactly are they going to do regarding protection?
What this shows at a larger level is how dependent our tiny communities are on make work projects and ‘ad hoc’ external funding projects just to survive. From an economic perspective the rationale for building these tiny places in the middle of nowhere with almost no hope of real development is an ethical issue that seems to have been ignored.
Notice how the story ends telling us that “If Aviqtuuq receives official designation, it will be protected from mining and exploration.” One of the few possibilities for real growth, happily snuffed out so we can lock Inuit away, forever preserved in a frozen cultural museum.
These announcements and the pittances given to the elite in the Northern communities support the same old, same old political agenfa and indoctrination, as well as the federal and global social alignment process
That aside, for Canadian sovereignty and defence we need populated outposts throughout the North. For the same reasons it is critical that we maintain functioning infrastructure at those locations
the political elite get over yourself and go back to doing data entry at your GN job that was possible Nunavut Agreement that was negotiated by the political elite.
The Liberals are doing their level best to quietly shelve the Coast Guard Diefenbaker ship building program that would have an estimated cost of over $7B. 2 new Polar Class Icebreakers would provide for true protection from marine accidents and spills while enforcing Canadian arctic maritime law including newly created Nunavut marine protected areas. An umbrella shipbuilding contract incomplete after 2 years of supposed trying, shortages of specialized steel, no $$ allocated in any federal budget for even 1 ship, and if construction started today by some miracle, no new ships would enter service until 2030. The pittance Ottawa is giving to Nunavut communities compared to the $7B price tag for a couple of Diefenbakers is on the hollow assumption they can provide for their own ocean protection. Pure political deflection. HTOs are simply the latest willing dupes playing along to Ottawa’s continued neglect of its responsibilities towards the Arctic Ocean. A cruise ship and a fuel tanker have grounded off the coasts of Aviqtuuq before in separate incidents. Good luck dealing with things like that with a few hunting boats next time this happens. CCGS Louis St. Laurent, you will be missed.