Nunavut needs better alcohol education, Kugluktuk mayor says
CBC
Alcohol education committees in Nunavut communities can't educate residents about liquor consumption because of the repercussions they face, says the mayor of Kugluktuk, Nunavut.
That's why Kugluktuk's alcohol education committee, which first formed in 2007, was unable to carry out its functions, Mayor Simon Kuliktana told the Nunavut Association of Municipalities (NAM).
Its members often came under attack as a result of their decisions, Kulitkana said.
"It became very negative," he said about the committee's experience. The committee was dissolved in 2018 when Kugluktuk voted to become an unrestricted community, that is, one with no limits on alcohol imports into the community.
By Nunavut law, an alcohol education committee is supposed to approve all requests by residents to buy alcohol in a community that has restrictions in place. But the committees don't have the capacity or resources to do alcohol education, Kuliktana said at this week's NAM meeting in Iqaluit.
"I think that's where the alcohol commission fails," he said.
Kuliktana made these comments after two staffers from Nunavut's Liquor and Cannabis Commission (NULC), the public agency that sells and distributes alcoholic beverages and cannabis products, spoke to the territory's mayors and senior administrators.
Kuliktana now wants to see a liquor plebiscite which could see the return of liquor restrictions and an alcohol education committee to Kugluktuk. The plebiscite, to take place in 2022, would be Kugluktuk's fourth vote on the flow of alcohol since the creation of Nunavut in 1999.
The decision on holding the plebiscite will take place after Nunavut's new finance minister takes over. That minister won't be named until after the territory's incoming premier and new cabinet are chosen in the leadership forum on Nov. 17.
Jo-anne Falkiner from the NULC agreed with Kuliktana that the alcohol education committees lack teeth.
But, according to the Liquor Act inherited from the Northwest Territories, alcohol education committees are the bodies in restricted communities which determine who may consume, possess, purchase or traffic alcohol, who can order alcohol, and the amount of alcohol a resident may bring.
That could change under a new liquor act.
In 2010, Keith Peterson, the territory's then finance minister, set up a task force to advise Nunavut on how to write a new Nunavut Liquor Act. Their 2012 report called Halting the Harm recommended a new liquor law focussing on harm reduction, stronger alcohol education committees and alcohol education committees in every community, restricted or not.
The act was then amended, but not rewritten.
Paul Myllyniemi takes the bus to work in Thunder Bay, Ont., every day — except when it doesn’t show up.
Residents in the Greater Toronto Area are digging themselves out and going back to their regular weekday schedules a day after a major snowstorm.
Commuters hoping to escape the cold by travelling on Line 6 will need to think again, as train service is down Friday morning.
Halim Rahim has lived in Canada for almost four years, but says he’s never experienced a winter like this.
For Lindsay Gillan, walking her dog, Daisy, twice a day in Charlottetown’s Victoria Park is a treasured routine that benefits both her physical and mental health.
Whitehorse city council has postponed its decision on an overhaul of its zoning bylaws that would, among other things, introduce short-term rental regulations in the city.
Prime Minister Mark Carney says he has reached a deal with China to allow tens of thousands of Chinese electric vehicles into the country in exchange for lower canola duties.
The Federal Court of Appeal is expected to give its decision Friday morning on whether the Liberal government unlawfully invoked the Emergencies Act to clear the convoy protests that gridlocked the capital city and border points nearly four years ago.
WARNING: This article describes allegations of sexual assault.
The average time for a 911 caller to connect with an operator is down to three seconds so far this year, according to Toronto police.
Emergency crews across southwestern Ontario kept busy on Thursday, responding to dozens of collisions, as a steady stream of snow squalls blanketed the region with as much as 30 centimetres of snow, prompting widespread school closures.
Woody Point — a picturesque community on Newfoundland's west coast — is reeling after the loss of what was a pillar of local business in the town for over 70 years.
A New Brunswick Mountie testified he punched a woman in the face twice, but only because she had punched him while he tried to arrest her.