Iqaluit panhandles for port money
Gary Park For Petroleum News
Iqaluit, capital of Canada’s Nunavut Territory and an entry point to the High Arctic, is left casting an envious eye on marine terminals in Quebec and Greenland and puzzled by its failure to gain recognition from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s long-proclaimed priority to advance the economic wellbeing of the northern region.
Since being elected in 2006, Harper has trumpeted his desire to make the Arctic a home of resource development and a vital part of Canada’s assertion of its sovereign Arctic claims by making an annual trip to the area, hauling along a team of journalists and cameras in what is viewed as his only effort to make friends with the news media.
The Northwest Territories and Yukon have benefited in many tangible ways from these excursions.
Nunavut has been left on the sidelines, ignored in its constant lobbying efforts to obtain C$56 million in federal money to build a deep-sea port at Iqaluit, where the waterfront has been virtually untouched in the 450 years since the English explorer Martin Frobisher sailed into the inlet now known as Frobisher Bay.
Meanwhile, the territorial government has watched as Denmark has asserted its claims to a chunk of the Arctic by investing heavily in a deep-sea port and paved roads in Greenland’s town of Nuuk, while Nunavik, in Quebec’s Arctic region, has benefited from provincial and federal money on marine facilities, aiding the delivery of vital supplies to its communities.
Facilities needed With signs that oil and gas exploration in Canada’s High Arctic is on the verge of a new life, residents, business owners and shipping companies are pleading with all levels of government to build the facilities that will cater to a rapidly-growing town of 7,000 and lay the foundations for resource development.
Suzanne Paquin, president of Nunavut Eastern Arctic Shipping, told The Canadian Press that economic development in the North will be stalled unless Nunavut has proper marine infrastructure, otherwise the costs of shipping materials and food amount to a “hidden tax.”
Those costs were blamed in 2011 by the National Aboriginal Health Council for Iqaluit’s high housing costs.
In 2009, the Harper government provided the financial help to establish a small craft harbor at Pangnirtung, farther north on Baffin Island, causing head-scratching within northern circles, which have seen an infusion of money to build community centers and hockey rinks.
A spokesman for federal Infrastructure Minister Denis Lebel argued Iqaluit’s waterfront is a municipal matter, suggesting that the responsibilities lie with the town council to seek funding.
Whether Harper is open to a pitch for help to build a deep-sea port may come into focus when he makes his annual excursion north this year, likely in August.
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