Nunavut Ministers Lobby for Federal Fishery Support Jun 3, 2008 – TheSourdough
Iqaluit – Patterk Netser, Nunavut’s Minister of Economic
Development & Transportation, and Olayuk Akesuk, Nunavut’s Minister
of Environment, took a strong stand on the importance of the fishery to
Nunavut’s economy, and the need for federal support to ensure
Nunavummiut have access to their marine resources.
The government ministers each made presentations to the Standing Senate
Committee on Fisheries and Oceans during their hearing in Iqaluit June 2,
2008.
“In the past, where Canadians had the potential for a fishery adjacent
their communities, harbours were built to provide safe access to that
resource. This needs to happen in Nunavut as well,” said Minister
Netser. “We have enormous fishery potential right on our doorstep. Yet
the physical infrastructure we need to develop that potential – the
harbours – is missing.”
The Minister acknowledged the 2008 federal government’s budget included
provisions for the construction of a harbour in Pangnirtung. But he says with
almost all of Nunavut’s communities on a coastline, the federal
government needs to do more.
“We don’t accept that it is the intention of the federal
government to build only one harbour here in Nunavut, where there are
twenty-five communities along two-thirds of Canada’s coastline,”
Minister Netser said. “Small craft harbours are essential to the
economic growth of the territory, and we will continue to press the federal
government to provide the infrastructure we need in Nunavut to build a
sustainable economy for our future.”
During Minister Olayuk Akesuk’s presentation, he pointed to the
negative impact of recent Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ (DFO)
decisions on Nunavut’s fishery. “We see the enormous disparity
between the federal government’s investment in fishery infrastructure
in southern Canada and in Nunavut as discriminatory,” he said.
Last month, DFO Minister Loyola Hearn excluded Nunavut from an allocation of
600 tons of turbot in waters adjacent to the territory. Instead the
allocation went to southern companies. In January, Minister Hearn allocated
1900 tons of turbot quota in Nunavut’s adjacent waters to southern
interests, even though Nunavut companies had indicated their interest in
purchasing that quota.
The Senate’s Fisheries and Oceans Committee is holding hearings this
week in Nunavut. Yesterday they were in Iqaluit. Later this week they will
travel to Pangnirtung, Qikiqtarjuak, Pond Inlet, Resolute, Nanisivik and
Arctic Bay.
This tour will focus on sovereignty, the management of marine resources and
infrastructure and the effects of climate change on the marine environment
and wellbeing of Inuit.
