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Monday, June 16, 1997 Keeping an important industry alive Great Slave Lake commercial fishermen are being filleted by falling prices, increasing expenses and cutbacks to their subsidy. They are looking to the government for help. Their request comes at a bad time. These days, less government interference in the business sector is an idea most Northerners would agree with and with good reason. A recent example of such bad business was contained in the federal auditor's report that revealed the territorial government, through the NWT Development Corporation, has a dismal track record with almost all the business ventures it funded and kept alive in 1995-96. These failures do not mean the government's mandate to stimulate the Northern economy and create jobs is flawed, only the execution is. The Great Slave fishery is an industry as opposed to a single enterprise. It employs about 120 people. In 1992, the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation paid fishing boat owners 69 cents per pound on $1.2 million pounds of whitefish. It was called a good year. The price dropped to 55 cents this year. To take up some of the slack, the fishermen began producing whitefish caviar, which brought in $45,000. But the fishery is still in trouble, especially as their $412,000 government subsidy was cut back to $280,000. Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development Minister Stephen Kakfwi is sympathetic to the fishery's plight. While no more money will be forthcoming immediately, he did express the government's willingness to "fund the development of a strategy as long as the fishermen take the lead." This is better than a kick in the head and we hope the fishermen attempt more innovations along the lines of the caviar. For its part, the government should make the distinction between a long-standing Northern industry hit by a temporary price drop and a pie in the sky venture that has no hope of succeeding.
Back in the free-spending 60s and 70s, government could afford to offer its employees and consultants outrageously generous benefits packages and few, if anyone, would complain.
Today, however, with stubbornly high unemployment rates and deficit-slashing the rule, it seems more appropriate to make a fuss over what some call the pork-barrel, at which former MP Jack Anawak seems to be feeding. Flying home from his job in Iqaluit as Nunavut interim commissioner to Rankin Inlet every week will cost Nunavut ten of thousands of land claim dollars.
The average Eastern Arctic resident can only dream of such luxury. It is excessive, unwarranted and unacceptable.
While we should all wonder why federal aviation rules on carrying passengers and strap-on cargo weren't being followed in the North, we should also wonder why the situation wasn't properly addressed when the new regulations came into effect last fall.
But at least federal air transport officials have done the right thing by relaxing the load-forbidding rule in the North while they work on putting together an alternative that meets the needs of one of the North's vital transportation links and keeps the airways safe.
And, thankfully, officials relaxed the rule in time for tourist season, averting a situation that could have cost pilots and air carriers untold thousands of dollars in lost revenue or court fines.
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