Thank you, and welcome, everybody.
I'll give you a quick background on the Nunavut Development Corporation and then I'll get into a number of points. One point I didn't list is broadband, and it's critical. I support everything Mr. Doyle had to say.
The Nunavut Development Corporation is a crown corporation of the Government of Nunavut, and it was created by the Nunavut Development Corporation Act. Cabinet, through the Minister of Economic Development and Transportation, appoints a chair and a board of directors who are responsible to direct the affairs of the corporation. The objects of the corporation are to create employment and income opportunities for residents of Nunavut, primarily in small communities; stimulate growth of business; promote economic diversification and stability; and promote the economic objectives of the Government of Nunavut.
The mechanism we have to achieve these objectives is to incorporate and manage companies, corporations, or projects by direct ownership or by venture equity investments. The corporation receives an annual appropriation of approximately $3 million from the Government of Nunavut to support our initiatives. The corporation, NDC, measures the effectiveness of our programs based on a variety of pre-established criteria. Key among them is the cost of creating or maintaining employment through the corporation's various investments.
The investment focus has been in the arts and crafts and meat and fish sectors, through the controlling ownership and operational subsidization of nine Nunavut-based companies. These companies are located in the three regions of Nunavut.
Briefly, the arts and crafts company, Ivalu Limited, in Rankin Inlet is an arts and crafts retail store. Jessie Oonark Limited is in Baker Lake, and it runs a silkscreening custom embroidery operation. It is also involved in buying carvings from local artists, which we move south through our wholesale division in Mississauga. Kiluk is located in Arviat. It produces sealskin fashions and it is involved in buying carvings as well. Taluq Designs is located in Taloyoak, and it produces a unique line of handcrafted duffle, which we call “packing animals”. They're dolls that are wearing amauti. It is also involved in buying carvings—there's a theme there. Uqqurmiut Arts and Crafts is in Pangnirtung. It's quite a famous arts and crafts operation. It's involved in tapestries, and there will be one in the speed skating oval for the Vancouver Olympics. If you went to the legislative assembly you would have seen a huge tapestry there that was done by Uqqurmiut. It does weavings, and it has a print shop, printmakers, and carving buying.
With respect to meat and fish companies, Kitikmeot Foods is in Cambridge Bay. It processes char and muskox. Kivalliq Arctic Foods is in Rankin Inlet, and it processes caribou and char. Papiruq Fisheries is in Whale Cove. It's a small seasonal operation, which is a feeder plant for Kivalliq Arctic Foods for char. Pangnirtung Fisheries is in Pangnirtung, and it's a turbot and char processor. We have a wholesale division in Mississauga that markets the arts and crafts across the country, and we have a retail store in Terminal 3 at Pearson, Arctic Nunavut. You may have come across it in your travels.
I will briefly touch on a couple of challenges, because there are a lot, and a couple of possible solutions. The GN report card has already been mentioned. That was undertaken by the Government of Nunavut to assess the effectiveness of its programs and services, and it was released at the beginning of October. It speaks to a number of barriers and challenges, and it offers a number of recommendations to address these. If you don't already have a copy, I think it's well worth your referencing it for this study.
Businesses need educated and skilled employees and managers. We've already heard this from the housing corporation. Currently there are not enough Nunavummiut who are qualified to fill existing employment positions. We are challenged to find the skill sets with Nunavut to fill many of the positions at our companies, particularly technical, trades, and senior management.
The very first recommendation of the GN report card speaks directly to this issue, and I'll quote it:
Re-open negotiations with the Government of Canada under the NLCA [Nunavut Land Claims Commission] to obtain financial support for a long-term, more aggressive education and training strategy.
The report card provides the rationale for this recommendation in its preamble on education, and it speaks directly to the purpose of this committee, so it's well worth referencing.
Training programs such as those offered through the aboriginal human resources development strategy need to continue. They have been effective. Support for the Nunavut Fisheries Training Consortium, through that program, is an excellent example of the program's success.
All of our companies require reliable access to raw materials at reasonable costs. Otherwise, the business just can't survive. Access to raw materials can be restricted by any number of factors, such as limited availability in a time-and-place context, cost to acquire, logistical infrastructure barriers, or quota and allocation restrictions.
Specifically--and I have an example here--soapstone for carvers is not often available, because either sources are not close to a community or the cost to quarry and transport them is prohibitive. I don't know if you've heard about this already. You'll probably hear about it later tonight in one of the other presentations.
Without this basic raw material, carvers are not able to make carvings to support themselves and their families. The Government of Nunavut does have a soapstone strategy in place, and the participation of Indian and Northern Affairs in support of this and other GN arts strategies will add critical resources needed to advance these initiatives.
Next, Nunavut's share of offshore turbot quota in the North Atlantic Fisheries Organization fishing area 0B is currently only 41%. It has recently been bumped up from 27%--just last week--but this is still well below the typical allocation of 80% to 90% that other jurisdictions have in their adjacent waters.
Industry needs quota to develop the fishery. Therefore, the federal government must support and continue to support Nunavut in achieving parity with other jurisdictions by allocating all future increases to Nunavut, and by granting Nunavut fishing interests the first right of refusal to purchase any southern-held quotas that are held in Nunavut waters, as they become available.
Growth in other fisheries such as char and clams is hampered by lack of research. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has invested significantly in fisheries research in other jurisdictions, but Nunavut has not seen this level of investment. DFO needs to undertake research in Nunavut so the industry has information to work with in assessing economic opportunities.
Infrastructure, as you have probably heard already, is underdeveloped and is an impediment to economic growth. Economic development of this nation has been dependent upon infrastructure investment since the days of Confederation. There are hundreds of examples, from railroads to airports.
Marine docks and harbours are necessary to service annual marine sealifts, the commercial fishing industry, and cruise ship tourism. Current means of loading and offloading are inefficient and expensive and can be unsafe. “Dangerous” might be a more appropriate word in some cases.
Other than the recent announcement of harbour development in Pangnirtung, there has been no federal investment of this type of infrastructure, even though there are programs such as the one for small craft harbours that is administered by DFO, which has invested multi-millions of dollars in harbours across the country for 20-plus years.
Nunavut has been excluded from this program until recently. More investment is needed. There is a government study dating back to prior to division, and it has been an issue since the mid-1980s with the Government of NWT to get harbours built.
Electricity is expensive to generate, both from a direct cost and an environmental cost perspective, but there are alternatives, such as a connection to southern power grids. A power line from Manitoba, where electricity is less than 10¢ per kilowatt, to the Kivalliq, where electricity is greater than 40¢ a kilowatt, has been studied and now awaits development. The federal government needs to invest in this infrastructure to reduce the economic barrier to businesses created by high utility costs.
Road development has been extensively studied. The federal government needs to invest in this infrastructure, as it has historically done in other regions of the country. Businesses will benefit from an alternative lower-cost means of transportation available throughout the year. Our challenge right now has been mentioned by the housing corporation. Moving materials is really a once-a-year deal. With a highway, as you know, it is 365 days a year.