Thank you very much.
Good morning to you all. This is Tommy Kilabuk from Arctic Bay. I want to say good morning to all and thank you very much for allowing us from Arctic Bay to take part in this meeting this morning. It's good to visit Ottawa over the phone, but I believe you are warmer than we are in Arctic Bay. We're dipping around minus forty degrees Celsius right now, but that's the reality of our world up here.
Yes, we have some concerns in our community that we're going to express to the standing committee this morning, and this is from a hunters and trappers organization from Arctic Bay. We are asking if the boundary line from OA, which is at the mouth of Lancaster Sound, could be moved to the Nunavut boundary line to the west, pass through Lancaster and through the Northwest Passage, so that Arctic Bay could be included in the OA boundary. We're looking forward to doing some turbot fishing and all that.
Since the economy for the sealing has been affected again by Europeans, we are asking the standing committee if it could be considered to move the OA boundary line from where it is now to the Nunavut boundary line so that our small community could be included in that boundary line for turbot fishing and marine fishing through our territory.
Also, we are looking for a small craft harbour in our community, which is needed for domestic use and for commercial use, for sealifts that come to our community. It's always hard for sealifts to unload and all that, because they're just unloading right to our community shoreline. And time is always affected too due to that. If we could have a small craft harbour, that would really help the community and the people who are coming into our community on sea, by boat, so that they could unload quicker, and we could use it for commercial use too.
Another issue we're facing every day in our community--and that is one of the concerns--is the cost of items that come to our community by sealift. I think we should have a better support and reduction on the marine navigation service fee, which I believe is about 18 times higher than for the people who are below the 60 degrees latitude. I believe we could have a better support on that, because the cost of living up here is tremendous. I believe the standing committee can help us on that, so that the cost of living up here could be reduced.
Also, to give an explanation of Arctic Bay, we're about 760 people, and about half of us, 60% to 70%, are unemployed. Due to that, we're looking for help so that we could do some marine fishing and all that. If the boundary line OA could be moved, that's one of our biggest issues here in Arctic Bay.
I thank you very much for allowing me to talk this morning. This is Tommy signing off from Arctic Bay. Thank you.