NUNAVUT

Residents and various groups across the territory are starting to contribute their ideas on how poverty can be reduced as a lead-up to the creation of the Nunavut Poverty Reduction Action Plan.

"We need to ensure people who need food get it," said Ed McKenna, director of the Nunavut Anti-Poverty Secretariat responsible for the file.

The plan was launched by the Government of Nunavut in October 2010.

The first step in the consultation phase has been public engagement. McKenna said it is scheduled to wrap-up at the end of March. Communities were asked to hold meetings to talk about poverty and submit the information to the secretariat. The information will be compiled in a report in April.

In Arctic Bay, about 50 residents held a meeting at the community hall on March 9.

Assistant senior administrative officer Anna Qaunaq said at first many thought it was about the Ajagutaq Food Bank started by a group of residents earlier this winter. Once clarified, she said a lot of comments were collected.

Qaunaq said someone mentioned young people need to learn how to better budget their money.

"They will come and keep spending money until it's all gone, they will run out of food and will have to go out and asking for some," she said.

Another suggestion was a couple of Ski-Doos should be available for residents who are willing to go hunting for food to be shared with the community.

Complaints were also made about the high prices of food at the Northern Store.

Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. and GN are working together on the project. Roundtable meetings with both parties and representatives from other organizations have been taking place monthly. McKenna said a representative from the federal government's Nutrition North Canada program has been asked to participate.

The secretariat operates under the Department of Economic Development and Transportation. It has $750,000 to work with for 2011. This is an increase of $250,000 from what it got in 2010. McKenna said the additional funding will allow him to hire more staff.

The next regional meetings scheduled to talk about poverty are slated to be in Rankin Inlet May 4 to 6, Cambridge Bay May 10 to 12, Pond Inlet May 17 to 19 and in Iqaluit May 25 to 27.

In the government's budget speech it committed $1.1 million for a country food program which includes country food markets and community freezers. Most of the money will be spent, McKenna said, on helping hamlets upgrade, repair or replace their community freezers.

Due to cost constraints, only three communities will benefit in the first year of the program. Other communities will see results from the program in subsequent years.

"With the amount of money we have I don't think anybody is under any illusions we're going to be able to run projects in 25 communities in the first year," he said.

A survey is also underway assessing community freezers across the territory. The last survey done would have been in 2007. It found 20 communities had freezers with 15 of them working at the time, but that was four years ago.

Qaunaq said the freezer in Arctic Bay is circa 1970 and people only use it during the winter months. The Secretariat is also looking at alternative energy storage options which could save the government up to 50 per cent per freezer on operating costs. Though in its infancy and at the project proposal stage, Daniel Giguere said he believes it is possible to reduce energy consumption from 35 to 75 per cent. One option which could be proposed is putting in solar (photovoltaic) panels to help reduce electricity consumption on freezers.

"The application is very favourable to PV panels as maximum refrigeration loads happen in the summer time when day duration is at its maximum and the energy cost is very high," said the refrigeration and heat pump expert at CanmetEnergy with Natural Resources Canada.

A pre-feasibility study has already been done.

"We have to adapt the technology to the special needs of Nunavut."

Another aspect of attempting to reduce poverty is the idea of a country food market. These have already proved to be quite successful in Iqaluit.

"It's good because it helps people who don't go hunting," said David Alexander, a hunter who was selling caribou and other country food at a market held on March 12 in -44C weather with the wind chill.

He and other hunters had line-ups at their tables and alongside their qamutiik.

The market was organized by Project Nunavut, a social enterprise focusing on different opportunities to help the traditional economy and to look at the local economy and see how we can make it more sustainable, said its president Willie Hyndman.

Founded in July 2010 and active since September, he said the market went very well with 15 hunters selling caribou, char, seal, polar bear, muktuq, igunaq (fermented walrus) and ptarmigan. All was local.

"We see in Greenland every community has a country food market and the hunters have been asking for it so it just seemed like an easy one to do," he said.

The first market was held in November and drew in hunters from Qikiqtarjuaq and Baker Lake. Another organization organized a similar market in Rankin Inlet.

Hyndman said all the profits go back to the hunters themselves and the market is funded by Growing Forward, a joint territorial and provincial program.

He said he believes the market is specifically helping two groups of people: those who don't have access to country food and hunters who have limited economic opportunity due to the high costs and expenses that come with the traditional activity.

"These two populations themselves are at risk of poverty and through this market are able to help each other solve those problems," Hyndman said.

"Not being able to eat the food from your culture is one of the effects of poverty."

The next market in Iqaluit will be April 16 during Toonik Tyme at Iqaluit Square. They will now take place at that location on the second Saturday of every month.

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