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NUNAVUT
If his comments in the legislature March 6 stand, Rankin Inlet North MLA Tagak Curley believes Arctic Co-operatives Ltd. is jeopardizing small business. His perspective couldn't be more wrong, ACL president Bill Lyall told Nunavut News/North April 11.

Tagak Curley: MLA believes Arctic Co-operatives Ltd. is jeopardizing small business. - NNSL file photo

"We are small businesses," Lyall said. "Every one of our co-ops in a settlement is a small business of its own in that settlement. The only thing that binds us together is the federation (that) was put together by all of the co-ops so they have better buying power."

In a March 9 letter to Curley and all other MLAs, forwarded to Nunavut News/North on April 11, Lyall challenged comments Curley made about co-ops during the March 6 session of the legislature.

"When we talk about small business, there are many businesses that haven't received any type of assistance or subsidy for over 30 years," Curley said at the time, "whereas the federal government has provided over $50 million to the Arctic Co-operatives Ltd. and that averages $5 million a year. Due to that reason, small businesses cannot compete with the Arctic Co-operatives Ltd."

That's simply not true, Lyall said, as co-ops receive no government funding. However, over the period Curley cited, co-ops returned $54 million in sales-generated dividends to its members, who are all customers living in communities across Nunavut.

"We're not funded by the government," he said. "We have to make money to make that thing work. Tagak Curley, being a former minister of Economic Development in the NWT legislature, should know that co-ops are just a small business run by the local people. It's owned by the people. Any savings that they make in each of the little co-ops goes back to those members.

"It's the only thing that benefits the person who has nothing, who may be living in public housing, who could be on welfare. Whether the benefit may be only $250, it's still a little bit of benefit that goes to them depending on how they use the co-op."

Arctic Co-operatives Ltd. is a federation of locally-owned and operated stores, including 21 in Nunavut, that choose to be part of the federation to gain access to the buying power, financing, and administrative assistance of a chain-structure while still remaining independent.

However, like Curley, it seems Akulliq MLA John Ningark, who defended co-ops against Curley's attack, did not seem to realize that co-ops are small businesses either.

"They provide stores, hotels, and other businesses that recycle the money in their local economy," Ningark said in the legislature March 6. "In Canada, if we look at Toyota, the federal government has provided subsidies to the large car companies. Why were all these subsidies going to these larger companies? I imagine it's because they employ a lot of people. In the smaller communities these co-ops provide them the largest number of employees within the communities and they have trained many people ... to be drivers, managers, and also work for the Nunavut government."

Ignoring the values presented by such proponents, Curley said Arctic Co-operatives have too much power in bidding for and winning government contracts.

"It does not seem to be coincidence that (almost all) fuel contracts ... which is a $165 million annual contract ... (have) been given to the co-operatives," Curley said March 6.

But contracts won by co-ops do not come anywhere near that figure, Lyall said. In his letter, he tells Curley that commission revenue on fuel sales for all Inuit-owned co-ops in Nunavut was $5 million in 2011, before taking away operating expenses.

"Those figures are not true," he said of the $165-million fuel contracts and the $50-million subsidy. "Man, oh man, if we had that kind of money provided to us, we wouldn't have to do very much in a community to help those people."

Refuting Curley's depiction of the "socialist" relationship between government and co-ops, Lyall defended the right of co-ops to bid on contracts, which they lose more often than they win.

"We're not given a preference because we're the co-op," he said. "We sharpen our pencils as good as we can, and if we get it, good for us. It's a service the people are doing for themselves. The return goes back to the people. If there's another business in town that bid for it and lost it, it's fair and square."

If anyone has the authority to question Curley, it's Lyall, a former NWT MLA for Cambridge Bay, one of the people who developed Nunavut's flag, and a member of the Order of Canada because of his work with co-ops.

"I've dealt with Tagak Curley all my political life, and I've never heard Tagak Curley apologize to anyone for what he did, and I think an apology is not going to help," said Lyall, who first met Curley, whom he considers a good friend, in the 1960s. "But Tagak Curley should get his figures straight before he blurts them out. If he chooses to apologize, I'll accept that apology with wide-open arms."

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