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Quebec lawmakers study Nunavik climate change

“The government should react if there is a danger to the population”

JANE GEORGE

Elder Nalaak Napaaluk, Kangiqsujuaq's mayor Mary Pilurtuut and Claude Pinard from Quebec's national assembly met to discuss the impact of climate change in the region [PHOTO BY JULIE GRENIER, KATIVIK REGIONAL GOVERNMENT]

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The Commission on the Environment and Transportation returned from its four-day trip with powerful impressions of how much climate change is impacting the environment and people of what Claude Pinard, the commission’s president, calls a “beautiful region.”

Pinard promised Quebec will do more to help Nunavik cope with climate change, even if it’s already doing its part globally to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

“The government should react if there is a danger to the security of the population. There are measures that should be taken,” Pinard said in a telephone call following the commission’s return south.

Pinard said he found people in Salluit don’t seem to be overly concerned about what he said is an “omnipresent danger” from melting permafrost in the community.

“But if tomorrow there was a landslide, even if there was two lives lost, that would be two too many,” he said. “What should be done for the citizens of Salluit? Should we move the entire village, or can a part be saved by means of corrective action? We need to look at this.”

To prepare for the trip north, the legislative commission, which includes members from the three main political parties – the Liberals, Parti Québécois and Action Démocratique – spent a full day in Quebec City, hearing from southern climate change specialists.

“We wanted to receive the maximum amount of information, so that that members of the commission wouldn’t arrive like tourists, and so the four days we would have there would be the most profitable for us and we could go deeply in the issues facing the communities,” Pinard said.

In Kuujjuaq, Kangiqsujuaq and Salluit, the commission met local and regional officials as well as with elders; in Kangiqsujuaq, elders told them about the hardships and dangers caused by changing ice conditions; and, in Salluit, the commission toured the community to see how some public buildings are sinking into the melting permafrost.

As for the commission’s look at transportation, the MNAs saw the high price of gas at the pump and learned how high transportation costs up the prices paid by shoppers. Pinard said he was amazed to find that in Nunavik stores a “nice bottle of Cheez-Whiz” costs $10.

“The Inuit community pays sales taxes and income taxes. We will analyze this question: couldn’t we make an effort to offer some kind of relief by decreasing taxes?”

Next month Pinard said the commission plans to table its recommendations for action in Nunavik at the National Assembly.

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