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June 9, 2006
Bitter rivals will split new turbot quota
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans is dividing Baffin’s new northern Davis Strait turbot quota more or less evenly between several bitter rivals.
The quota, for 2,500 tonnes of turbot for division 0A in northern Davis Strait, is allowed under a ruling last year by the North Atlantic Fisheries Organization.
The allocations, approved before June 2 by Loyola Hearne, the federal fisheries minister, based on recommendations from the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board, are as follows:
- Nattivak HTO of Qikiqtarjuaq: 700 tonnes
- Baffin Fisheries Coalition: 700 tonnes
- Cumberland Fisheries Ltd. of Pangnirtung: 500 tonnes
- Qikiqtaaluk Corporation: 500 tonnes
- Inshore “development quota,” to be allocated later: 100 tonnes
For the Nattivak group, this represents a major coup. The Qikiqtarjuaq hunters broke from the BFC two years ago, and have been competing with them for 0A quota ever since.
The BFC and QC are both involved in joint-venture companies with firms created in Canada by Greenlandic and Icelandic fishing executives.
In addition to the extra 700 tonnes announced last week, the BFC will continue to fish a 4,000-tonne quota that DFO has been giving them since 2001.
June 9, 2006
Western premiers to meet in Iqaluit next year
The premiers of Canada’s four western provinces and three territories will get to live it up in Iqaluit next summer.
That’s because Nunavut has agreed to host the 2007 Western Premier’s Conference, which is set for Iqaluit in July of that year.
Okalik made the announcement near the end of this year’s western premier’s meeting, held May 29-31 in Gimli, Manitoba.
The annual western premier’s gathering brings together the premiers of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut.
June 9, 2006
Don’t renew that gun licence!
If your firearms license has expired, don’t worry – you no longer have to renew it.
The federal government is providing a one-year amnesty for gun owners whose licences expire.
If you have renewed your firearms licence since January 1, 2004, you may be eligible for a refund. For more information, contact the RCMP, which has taken over responsibility for the firearms registry and now operates the Canada Firearms Centre.
Public safety minister Stockwell Day announced the amnesty among a series of changes on May 17, along with a funding cut that took the program’s budget from $83 million to $73 million.
These changes are a short-term measure — good up to May 17, 2007 — until the new Conservative government introduces a law to end the long-gun registry for good.
In the meantime, the rest of the gun laws apply.
Right now, you still need to get a licence to purchase a new gun or ammunition. And all guns must still be registered, but even that process just got easier. Gun owners no longer have to find a verifier to corroborate the information about their gun.
Even when the gun registry is abolished you’ll still need a licence to own or acquire a gun, including safety training and background checks, but this government promises to make that process simpler.
“The licencing is really the key for screening because it’s the licencing where you have to go through your background checks, you have to go through your safety training, and that is where you screen out dangerous gun owners, and that’s also where the police know a firearm, either a shotgun or a rifle, could be at a particular residence, from the license,” said policy advisor Roy Rempel.
“The registry was all about trying to track every individual firearm at all times and that just proved completely ineffective.”
Safe storage laws will remain in place.
June 2, 2006
Former SAO faces fraud charge
The former senior administrative officer of Kugaaruk is accused of defrauding the hamlet of $27,000.
Quinn Taggart, 42, faces one charge of fraud that dates back to around April 16, 2002. Police charged him on Feb. 3, 2006, after a lengthy investigation into questionable money transactions.
Taggart began working for the hamlet from May 1998 to November 1999 as finance administrator. He returned in May 1999 until April 2002 as senior administrative officer.
He is to make his first court appearance on June 7 in Kugaaruk. Taggart lives in Nova Scotia.
June 2, 2006
Prelim set for vicious Pang assault
Tommy Nuvaqiq, a Pangnirtung man who faces attempted murder and sexual assault charges, will appear in an Iqaluit court on Dec. 12 for his preliminary inquiry.
A preliminary inquiry is held to determine if there’s enough evidence to move forward to trial.
Nuvaqiq’s charges date back to a vicious assault on a 31-year-old woman last summer.
Nuvaqiq also faces a number of break-and-enter charges, and one count of resisting arrest. He’s in custody in the Baffin Correctional Centre.
June 2, 2006
Igloolik man died cooking: Fire marshal
An Igloolik man burned to death inside a cabin last month during a cooking accident, Nunavut’s fire marshal has concluded.
Peter Kadlutsiak was found dead inside a cabin in the Mogg Bay area outside Igloolik on May 18, 2006. Dental records had to be used to identify the badly-burned man.
Evidence points towards a flash fire that occurred while Kadlutsiak cooked with a Coleman stove, said fire marshal Tim Hinds.
The RCMP’s major crimes unit has closed their file on Kadlutsiak’s death.
“Suicide’s certainly been ruled out. It’s been classified as an accident,” said Cpl. Randy Slawson.
As of this Wednesday, blood tests had not returned, which would indicate if Kadlutsiak was drinking.
June 2, 2006
Two Kugluktuk hunters missing, presumed dead
Two Kugluktuk hunters are presumed dead after a search last week found their snowmobile, but no sign of the men.
Lenny Hikomak, 33, and Gregory Havioyak, 21, were last seen during the afternoon of Thursday, May 25, travelling in front of the community and heading back into town.
But they never came home, police were told later that afternoon.
The next day a search party recovered their snowmobile, near a patch of open water. Shortly afterwards the search was called off due to dangerously thin ice conditions.
June 2, 2006
Rabid foxes near Kugluktuk
Kugluktuk residents are reminded to keep children and pets away from foxes, which were spotted in and around the community last week.
“Foxes carry rabies… and rabies can be fatal,” warned environmental health officer Jeremy Roberts in a press release.
“If you see a fox, dead or alive, tell the wildlife officer about it right away. Go to the health centre if you are attacked by a fox,” Roberts said.
Residents are also being asked to vaccinate their dogs with a rabies shot, if they haven’t already.
June 2, 2006
One teen stabbed, another charged in Gjoa Haven
Gjoa Haven police have charged a teenage boy with aggravated assault following a stabbing that occurred close to midnight on Sunday, May 14.
Drunken revelry inside a home turned violent, according to Cpl. Michele Ducharme, Gjoa Haven’s RCMP detachment commander.
“The people were drinking. There were a bunch of them. They started fighting,” she said.
A 19-year-old man was stabbed several times, on the arms and face, according to police. He was flown to Yellowknife to be treated and returned to Gjoa Haven the next day.
Police charged a 17-year-old boy with aggravated assault. He is to appear in court in Iqaluit on June 5.
June 2, 2006
New NORAD deal still a question mark
It’s too early to predict how the new U.S.-Canada NORAD agreement will affect the role of Canadian forces operating in Canada’s Arctic, Col. Norm Couturier, the commander of Joint Task Force North, told reporters last month in Iqaluit.
“There will be some changes, but we still don’t know exactly what they’re going to be,” Couturier said.
NORAD was created in 1958 to defend North America against long-range bombers and nuclear missiles launched from the former Soviet Union.
The renewed agreement, signed April 28 in Ottawa, expands NORAD’s job to include maritime defence, especially protecting major seaports against infiltration by terrorists.
But right now, that simply means more communication between Canada and the U.S.
“The only thing that we can be sure of is that we will be passing more information back and forth so that we can be seamless in maritime defence,” Couterier said.
And Couturier said the new agreement won’t bring more U.S. ships into Canadian waters.
“I don’t think there will be much difference in what the public is going to see,” he said.
Couturier said Canada is already beefing up its ability to keep track of who enters the Canadian Arctic through Polar Epsilon and other high-tech methods that the Department of National Defence is now working on.
Polar Epsilon would use underwater sensors to communicate information through a satellite expected to be launched next year. Another detection scheme would use long-range unmanned aircraft carrying a cornucopia of detection technologies.
The NORAD renewal agreement is now, for all intents and purposes, a done deal, but Prime Minister Stephen Harper says it will be debated in the House of Commons.
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