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Greenland-Nunavut meeting ponders trade links

“How do we get our end or their end to re-establish this air link?”

JANE GEORGE

Finding a way to connect Greenland to Nunavut and Labrador brought business and government officials together this week in Sisimiut, Greenland.

Hal Timar from the Baffin Regional Chamber of Commerce said the goal of the three-day meeting was to determine what the next steps are.

“How do we get our end or their end to re-establish this air link?” Timar said.

To discuss plans face-to-face, the Baffin Regional Chamber of Commerce and KNI A/S of Greenland arranged the gathering in Sisimiut.

“The meeting offers a possibility for a frank discussion of what we can do, where business will have an opportunity to discuss its opinions. Besides that, the participants [from Greenland] will have possibility to meet with Canadians on their own land,” said Vittus Qujaakitsoq, KNI’s director of communications.

KNI A/S is the largest retail business in Greenland, with 68 retail stores around the island and more outlets in the smaller settlements than any other company in Greenland. KNI supplies oil throughout Greenland and produces various seafood and meat products, including lamb, caribou and muskox.

In the past, KNI did supply some products to Nunavut – and would like to do this again.

In 2004, KNI’s board of directors went to Kuujjuaq and Montreal, where they met with representatives of Makivik Corp., which owns the First Air and Air Inuit airlines, and visited the headquarters of the F⁄d⁄ration des Cooperatives-du-Nouveau-Qu⁄bec, Nunavik’s cooperative network.

And last July, KNI supported the memorandum-of-understanding signed in Iqaluit by Premier Paul Okalik and Premier Hans Enoksen to promote closer trade links between Nunavut and Greenland.

Now, it’s up to the representatives from Nunavut’s two major airlines, government and businesses to decide how to reboot trade and air travel between Canada and Greenland.

First Air pulled out of its Iqaluit-Kangerlussuaq scheduled jet route in 2001, citing a lack of traffic.

“We think for it to be a viable link that we have to have trade on it as well, so we’re hoping it could be a kind of combi-aircraft flight,” Timar said.

Other opportunities that could support or be supported by a scheduled air link were also on the three-day meeting’s agenda.

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