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INUVIK
Inuvik Mayor Floyd Roland said he is not surprised or displeased with the NWT budget announced last week. There wasn't a lot in it for the town, he said, but there were some good signs.

Inuvik Mayor Floyd Roland said he is not surprised with the territorial budget announced last week. - T. Shawn Giilck/NNSL photo

"I didn't expect a lot of new funding," he said Feb. 8. "A lot of infrastructure has been replaced here over the last few years, so we're in good shape that way."

As a former premier and finance minister, Roland is in a unique position to analyze the budget.

"Even when I was an MLA, my first thought was to look at a budget and see what was there for my local area and town," he said.

Roland was most interested in the $7 million in funding for the Mackenzie Valley fibre-optic line to be built from Yellowknife to Inuvik, a key component of the town's hopes for economic growth. There were some small increases as well for various subsidies and funding. He also noted the small increase in funding for tourism at $600,000 as a hopeful sign.

"The fibre-optic line is a big part of what we hope to do in the future," Roland said.

The town currently has some research facilities using satellite dishes, with more poised to come online in the near future. The link will vastly improvement data transmission, Roland said, which will make it easier to attract and do business with such companies, as well as providing hi-tech jobs to the community.

At one point, he said, various companies were looking at building their own link. That likely would have been connected through the Yukon, bypassing the rest of the NWT and Yellowknife completely. It was at that point the GNWT became involved in the process, to protect interests here at home.

Roland said his perusal of the budget showed there is some money coming for the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk highway project, although he was uncertain as to how much funding is being provided. He said he hoped more might be made available later in the year.

"Overall, it was a stand-pat kind of budget," he said. "But (the town and the NWT) need to invest and create new opportunities."

As for the rather small increase in the territorial tourism budget, Roland said, "There's some creep upwards and that is good."

However, he also spoke passionately about the need for Inuvik to enhance its tourism.

"We used to do a lot better with tourism than we do now," he said. "I think we can do so much more."

One of the key challenges for Inuvik, Roland said, is that people here, including himself, take the town's many charms and interesting features for granted. There's a need to remind residents and business people of how a visitor might see Inuvik very differently.

Chamber of Commerce president Newton Grey had much the same view of the budget as Roland.

He was particularly interested in the increase in the tourism budget.

"When I became aware of it yesterday my reaction was that it's small but moving in the right direction," he said. "Maybe with devolution we'll have more money to devote to this wonderful resource we have here."

Like Roland, Grey said he was happy to see the funding for the fibre-optic link as well.

"I'm happy they recognized the need to do something," he added. "Otherwise, there's not much for this area."

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