Jack Danylchuk
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, September 5, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - The federal government needs to give more to the North and take less, NDP leader Jack Layton said Friday after wrapping up a Northern sovereignty tour.

NDP leader Jack Layton, and MPs Dennis Bevington and Jean Crowder take a lunch break in Yellowknife during their Northern sovereignty mission though Nunavut and the Northwest Territories last week. - Jack Danylchuk/NNSL photo

"We feel there has been a real imbalance in the relationship," said Layton, who describes the North as a partnership between First Nations, more recent arrivals and the federal government.

"It's a partnership that's not working well right now. It's out of balance," Layton said in Yellowknife after a tour that took him through Iqaluit, Pangnirtung, Cambridge Bay and Rankin Inlet.

In visits to remote communities, Layton said he witnessed the "lack of adequate and affordable housing" and the impact of inadequate port and docking facilities on the price of essential goods and services.

"I think people in the south would shocked by prices in the North," he said.

Layton met with government and community leaders and social agencies in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories.

He said he is supporting a vision created by the three Northern premiers in May to tackle climate change and deal with the social ills of the North.

Layton said he will also push for a resource revenue-sharing agreement with the territories once Parliament reconvenes in September.

"When we look at the great wealth that is emerging now, Ottawa is getting the cash flow more than the people of the North. We feel there needs to be some fundamental fairness, and support for infrastructure."

Western Arctic MP Dennis Bevington said he was taken by Nunavut's approach to devolution and resource revenue sharing.

"The concept there is that there is more to be gained by devolution; resource revenue sharing is not their number one priority. Out of control will come certainty on money. Without control there is no certainty on money."

The government needs to make living in the North more affordable by increasing the northern tax credit, and to consult with communities on new military and commercial developments, Layton said.

Layton said Friday thatthe Harper government is taking the wrong approach to Arctic sovereignty.

"Let's not put so much emphasis on the military approach to sovereignty in the North, let's put emphasis on the people of the North," said Layton.

Canada's best claim to sovereignty is the fact that Inuit communities have been established across the North for thousands of years, Layton said.