This week, mayors and senior Nunavut officials attending the Association of Nunavut Municipalities (AMN) in Iqaluit can finally discuss difficult municipal issues, such as lack of infrastructure and barriers to travel.
This is the first face-to-face meeting of city leaders since 2019.
COVID-19 has had an impact on the functioning of NAM, said its president and host mayor Kenny Bell of Iqaluit.
Due to the pandemic, NAM’s last annual general meeting was held virtually and “it was incredibly terrible because of the internet,” Bell said.
“It was not doable,” he said. “We have fulfilled our legal obligations, but it was not a good experience for any of us.”
Bell said the NAM is further weak because it was difficult to get busy city leaders to focus on the association during the pandemic.
Bell said he hopes this AGM will involve more members. The association is considering amending its statutes to allow councilors to join as members.
“I just hope we have people who want to be part of the association and that can help us move forward,” Bell said.
New Mayor of Cambridge Bay
Meanwhile, Cambridge Bay’s new mayor, Angulalik Pedersen, came to the three-day meeting armed with a list of questions.
Pedersen, the former deputy mayor of Cambridge Bay, was appointed last week to succeed former mayor Pamela Gross, who was recently elected as the new MP for the center west.
Pedersen shared his concerns about air travel with Chris Avery, president of Nunavut’s airline, Canadian North, after his presentation to NAM.
Pedersen asked Avery about the cancellation of jet service to Cambridge Bay due to its gravel runway.
And Pedersen told Avery that the cost of air travel has risen further due to the airline’s “dynamic” scale of fares, which means last-minute travel bookings cost more.
But even worse are the big delays in air travel.
Flight cancellations due to weather conditions recently left many residents of western Nunavut stranded in Yellowknife, where they had to stay in hotels at their own expense, Pedersen said.
The airline told passengers, including some young people who were not used to traveling alone, that they may have to wait until November 11 to return home. In the end, they were able to travel earlier, he said.
Hot weather disrupts flights
Avery said warmer-than-average weather in recent weeks, with fog and rain, has resulted in a lot of disruption.
“The flights need to be canceled and it is more difficult to reschedule them,” Avery told CBC.
Often, pilots have already accumulated their scheduled hours. There are also fewer pilots. Due to declining demand for flights during the pandemic, Canadian North has also reduced the number of pilots, Avery said.
“We are coming out of COVID,” Avery said. “We see the light at the end of the tunnel. We are hiring, training flight attendants and pilots as fast as possible.”
Avery said the good news is that with the winter the reliability of Canadian North operations will improve: “Anyone who lives in the North knows that we have a lot less weather cancellations in the winter when it is cold. colder and the weather is more predictable ”.
The NAM meeting agenda also includes opportunities for attendees to chat with other government officials, Inuit organizations, and business leaders.
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