Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (Jan 21/02) - The territorial government says changes made to the Nunavut Liquor Act are supposed to make life difficult for bootleggers.

Finance Minister Kelvin Ng, the minister responsible for the Nunavut Liquor Board, said recently that changes to the import and special-occasion permits should help cut down on the sale of illegal alcohol.

The changes, which came into effect Dec. 20, were made after consultations with Nunavummiut and police officers.

"The RCMP wanted to clamp down and close some of the loopholes that were there for people wanting to illegally receive and sell alcohol, primarily the bootleggers," said Ng.

Specifically, the new rules shorten the time import permits are valid and the amount of alcohol available for special-occasion permits reduced.

Prior to the new 21-day shelf life of import permits, residents in Iqaluit had a period of a year to use their permits. Other Nunavut communities had three months.

A shorter timeframe means people will be unable to reuse permits -- a trick bootleggers use to continually import large amounts of alcohol.

"Narrowing it to 21 days is a reasonable amount of time for somebody to place an order and receive an order. People can't continue to use the same permit for multiple orders, which is what was happening," said Ng.

The price of import permits was also cut dramatically. Ng called the old rates excessive and punitive and said they could have discouraged people from going through the proper channels. "I didn't make a lot of sense," he said.

As for the changes to special-occasion permits, the government hopes that limiting the amount of alcohol available for purchase based on the number of individuals attending the event should better control the flow of alcohol in Nunavut.

Alcohol not consumed at an event must now required to be returned.

"Unreasonable amounts of liquor were being ordered. Ten people would order 10 bottles and 10 cases of beer," said Sgt. Michael Jeffrey of the Iqaluit RCMP detachment.

"We had an investigation and found people were supplying liquor to minors after the event and bootlegging."

The new regulations still allow residents to legally purchase alcohol, but "stop people who want to abuse it," said Jeffrey.

Additional changes will be made in an effort to make it more appropriate for residents. The old legislation was adopted from the GNWT following division of the territory.