Nunavut municipal leaders swap challenges at first in-person meeting since 2019

This week Nunavut's mayors and senior administrators attending the Nunavut Association of Municipalities (NAM) in Iqaluit can finally discuss tough municipal issues, such as the lack of infrastructure and hurdles to travel.

It's the first face-to-face meeting municipal leaders have had since 2019.

COVID-19 has impacted 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 unbelievably terrible because of the internet," Bell said.

"It wasn't doable," he said. "We got our legal requirements done but it wasn't a good experience for any of us."

Bell said the NAM is moreover weak because it was hard to get busy municipal leaders to focus on the association during the pandemic.

Bell said he hopes this AGM gets members more involved. The association plans to amend its bylaws to allow councillors to join as members.

"I'm just hoping that we get people who want to participate in the association and it can help move us forward," Bell said.

New mayor from Cambridge Bay

Meanwhile, Cambridge Bay's new mayor Angulalik Pedersen came to the three-day meeting armed with a list of questions.

Pedersen, previously Cambridge Bay's deputy mayor, was appointed last week to take over from former mayor Pamela Gross, recently elected as the new MLA for the western hub.

Pedersen raised air travel concerns with Chris Avery, the president of Nunavut's airline, Canadian North, after his presentation to NAM.

Pedersen questioned Avery about the cancellation of jet service to Cambridge Bay due to its gravel runway.

And Pedersen told Avery how the cost of air travel has risen even higher due to the airline's fare "dynamic" scale that means last-minute travel bookings cost more.

But worse yet are the big air travel delays.

Flight cancellations due to weather recently left many from western Nunavut stranded in Yellowknife where they had to stay at hotels at their own expense, Pedersen said.

The airline told passengers, including some youth who were not used to travelling on their own, that they might have to wait until Nov.11 to head home. In the end, they were able to travel earlier, he said.

Warm weather disrupts flights

Avery said the warmer-than-average weather in recent weeks, with fog and rain, has led to many disruptions.

"The flights have to be cancelled and it's harder to reschedule them," Avery told CBC.

Often pilots have already accumulated their scheduled hours. There are also fewer pilots. Due to the decreased demand for flights during the pandemic, Canadian North also reduced the number of pilots, Avery said.

"We're coming out of COVID," Avery said."We see light at the end of the tunnel. We're hiring, training flight attendants and pilots as quickly as we can."

Avery said the good news is that, with winter, the reliability of Canadian North's operations will improve: "anyone who lives in the North knows that we have far fewerweather cancellations in winter when it's colder and the weather is more predictable."

Also included in the agenda of the NAM meeting are opportunities for participants to talk with other government officials, Inuit organizations and business leaders.