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KRG regional council meets in Kuujjuaq

Houses, roads, food coupons all on the agenda

JANE GEORGE

Kativik Regional Government councilors Davidee Niviaxie of Umiujaq, Peetah Inukpuk of Inukjuak and Lucassie Inukpuk of Kuujjuaraapik prepare for last week's sessions. (PHOTOS BY JANE GEORGE)

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New housing for police

The Kativik Regional Police Force will finally get its own stock of staff housing.

At last week’s Kativik Regional Government council meeting in Kuujjuaq, councillors passed a resolution that acknowledged the need for KRPF housing in Umiujaq, Inukjuak, Ivujivik, Aupaluk, Kangiqsujuaq, Tasiujaq, Salluit and Akulivik.

The resolution says the KRG and the Kativik Municipal Housing Bureau will use Quebec’s Affordable Housing Program to build duplexes similar to those built in the region by Makivik Corp.’s social housing program.

However, in Umiujaq, the KMHB will purchase two houses for use by the police, who have been without any permanent housing for many months.

The KMHB will rent these units to the KRG for 15 years and then sell them to the KRG for $1 each.

Assistance for unemployed Nunavimmiut

About 1,000 Nunavimmiut receive some form of government support every month through the regional government’s employment assistance program. The largest numbers of recipients are in Kangiqsualujjuaq, Inukjuak, Puvirnituq and Salluit.

However, statistics tabled at last week’s meeting of the Kativik Regional Government regional council said Salluit’s number dropped from 150 to 53, last month, because of the receipt of profit sharing cheques from the Raglan Mine in August.

To help elders and people receiving employment assistance, the KRG also plans to continue its $1 million food coupon program, which provides from $50 to $100 a month per person in coupons that can be exchanged at local stores for healthy foods.

Next week, Quebec's minister of justice Yvan Marcoux visits Kangirsuk, the site of the Makitautik halfway house, and Kuujjuaq, where he will officially open the recently-renovated court house.

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Inuit at the Raglan Mine

According to figures tabled at last week’s Kativik Regional Government regional council meeting, there are 88 Inuit working at the Raglan Mine and 466 non-Inuit, for a total Inuit workforce at the mine of 15.88 per cent.

At the Inuit-owned, joint-venture company, Kiewit Nuvumiut, 27.5 per cent of the workers are Inuit and at another joint venture, Bradley Nuvumiut, 6.89 per cent of the workers are Inuit. None of the workers at Kattiniq Transport, which also has part Inuit ownership, are Inuit.

The overall Inuit employment rate at the mine site is 18.53 per cent.

Meanwhile, a group of nine Inuit are following a training program underground. This $737,000 project will be receiving on-the-job training money from the KRG.

The Raglan Mine is now called the Xstrata Nickel-Raglan Mine following the mine’s recent sale by Falconbridge to Xstrata.

Looking at public transit

The Kativik Regional Government will pay $50,000 for a consultant to look at Nunavik’s public transit needs.

That’s because Quebec is budgeting $130 million over three years to develop public transit in the province, and the KRG’s political attaché in Quebec City, Louis Mercier, said some of this money - about $300,000 - will stay in Nunavik if the region can say what it needs and where the money will go.

Quebec’s public transit policy wants to increase the number of people who use public transit.

Driving classes

The Kativik Regional Government’s employment and training department, along with the Kativik School Board, wants to deliver Class Five driving courses in four of Nunavik’s larger communities - Kuujjuaq, Inukjuak, Puvirnituq and Salluit.

The course has previously been given only in Kuujjuaq where a new cycle starts on Sept. 30. This course prepares drivers to take the provincial driving test, which will be offered in Kuujjuaq on Oct. 23 and 24.

The three course sessions in Kuujjuaq will be given outside of regular working hours, on evenings and weekends. Participants need to pay a deposit of $50 and must have held a territorial drivers’ permit for a year.

Tamaani increases client base

Success means Nunavik’s Tamaani Wireless Internet service is slowing down.

Tamaani, which is operated by the Kativik Regional Government, now has 1,000 residential customers and more than 250 other points of service in the region.

But without an increase in free bandwith from the National Satellite Initiative, which subsidizes satellite bandwidth for telecommunications use in remote areas, the speed of Tamaani will continue to slow down at peak use periods.

“It’s becoming very crucial we have more bandwidth,” Joë Lance, the director of the KRG’s administrative department, told the recent regional council meeting in Kuujjuaq.

Tamaani has completed its joint application for more bandwidth in cooperation with K-Net from Ontario and KTC from northern Manitoba.

When the KRG receives confirmation that their application for more bandwidth has been approved, Lance said there will be more money available to install wireless units for videoconferencing in schools and municipal offices.

Lance said that a review of financial information shows Tamaani should not be running a deficit in 2006. A deposit to cover wireless modems means Tamaani will recover the expenses it incurred from lost or unreturned modems.

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