IQALUIT
Weeks after hearing from a group of investors with a $3-million plan to brew beer in Iqaluit, city council was split on whether to give its blessing to the project July 14.

Councillor Terry Dobbin, left, said he supports allowing two breweries to set up shop in Iqaluit, injecting $3.4 million into the economy. Councillors Joanasie Akumalik and Simon Nattaq, to his right, were against the idea. Noah Papatsie (not visible) and acting mayor Romeyn Stevenson supported the project applications. - Casey Lessard/NNSL photo

Then it had to decide whether to back a second, smaller brewery proposed by former MLA Hunter Tootoo, the chairperson of the Nunavut Planning Commission. Acting mayor Romeyn Stevenson broke ties in both cases to allow the applications to go ahead.

Council was faced with the decision as part of the licensing process, which requires community input, in this case in the form of council support.

Echoing the recent beer and wine store debate, councillors Simon Nattaq and Joanasie Akumalik opposed the projects, saying a brewery would inject more beer into a community already facing serious problems due to alcohol.

Nattaq said he opposed it because he heard from constituents who were concerned there would be an immediate influx of alcohol in the community if the opening of a brewery coincided with the opening of the beer and wine store.

Stevenson refuted those concerns.

"Long before that (beer and wine store) question was brought up, this as a business opportunity could have taken place," Stevenson said. "All that discussion about the beer and wine store is for an actual outlet that would sell to people. This is a brewery that would make beer. If they weren't allowed to sell to customers, they could still sell to bars, just like bars have always bought beer. They could sell to the south."

Councillor Terry Dobbin, who started the petition that called for a plebiscite on a beer and wine store, was supportive of the Iqaluit breweries.

"The GN spends hundreds of thousands of dollars bringing beer in from outside the territory, from southern manufacturers," Dobbin said. "Basically what the Nunavut Brewing Company is going to do is replace that southern import with a local craft brewery. It creates employment, it's manufacturing. Iqaluit has no manufacturing. I support it."

The discussion included talk of the second project, called the Iqaluit Brewing Company, brought forward by Tootoo.

Stevenson described it as "a similar idea with slightly different numbers." The Nunavut Brewing Company proposal - brought forward by Cody Dean, Ambrose Livingstone, Harry Flaherty, Sheldon Nimchuk and Stuart Kennedy - predicted the ability to produce up to 1,500 litres of beer per day at a capital cost of $3 million. Tootoo's project - he would hold all of the shares - is about one-tenth the size at a capital cost of $347,343 to produce up to 2,000 litres of beer per week.

Both applications went to a council vote, with Dobbin and Noah Papatsie supporting each project and Akumalik and Nattaq opposing them. Stevenson broke both ties to give the projects support to move to the next step in the application process.

"They're just taking a chunk of the beer that's already here and replacing it with beer made here," Stevenson said. "The debate over the beer and wine store I felt got pushed off course because it ended up being a debate about alcohol. We have alcohol in this city. If people want to change that, that's a whole different debate than whether a company can create beer here to sell in a market that's already buying. They're already buying beer in the bars. They're just asking to be allowed to be part of that market."

With council's approval, the idea is one step closer to reality.

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