Climate, housing and drugs among concerns for Inuvik voters

A person rides a bike past an event centre in Inuvik, N.W.T., Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson

Between bouts of live music at Inuvik’s Ingamo Hall Friendship Centre, one attendee at an Easter lunch said that while he isn’t certain, he’ll probably vote for the New Democratic Party in the federal election.

In speaking about NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, the attendee – who preferred not to be named – said, “It seems like he likes to help Elders.”

“I like his views better than the Conservatives or Liberals,” the man said.

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Another attendee, Shirley Kisoun, said she had heard from some of the Northwest Territories candidates that have come through town but isn’t aligned with any of their parties.

Kisoun said some of the most important issues to her are climate change, housing and what she says is an insufficient number of shelter spaces for women in the region.

“We see a lot of shelters in Yellowknife, but they have to bring them to the region,” said Kisoun. “We have a women’s shelter here in Inuvik that has eight beds – that serves the whole region.”

She said climate change is already taking a toll on housing in the area.

“A lot of people that have camps on the land, their houses fell in the river,” said Kisoun.

She said she has heard of people struggling to receive compensation after losing their homes – “they have to start all over” – and the changing climate has also affected caribou harvesters.

“It’s bad enough that our caribou hunting is restricted, so that’s one issue that we deal with, but there are some communities that are dealing with worse than that where there’s no caribou at all because they have no lichen on the land,” said Kisoun.

“They need the land to eat like we need to land to survive.”

Kisoun said she had been waiting for Kelvin Kotchilea, the NDP candidate for the N.W.T., to make his way to Inuvik so she could hear from him.

While Kotchilea passed through Inuvik on Friday on his way to Aklavik and Tuktoyaktuk, he said he had no planned public appearances in the town – the third-largest community in the N.W.T. – due to a tight travel schedule and short election period.

However, during his Inuvik stopover, Kotchilea told Cabin Radio how he might begin to address some of the issues raised by residents.

A carbon tax may not be the best way to tackle the climate crisis, Kotchilea said – at least not a tax on struggling N.W.T. residents and business owners.

“The way you see carbon tax being implemented is that it was going to be a revenue source to tackle climate change but, at the same time, why go after people that are already struggling to get by when you can go after the emitters or the mining industry?” Kotchilea asked.

“They should be putting dollars aside for us Canadians so that we can better protect ourselves and adapt to these new changes that are maybe going to be more normal.”

Kotchilea said projects like building the Mackenzie Valley Highway are a climate adaptation measure he sees as a solution to barges not being able to run on the Mackenzie River due to low water levels, or a shortening winter road season.

He said the NDP would also promote more involvement from the federal government to help fight wildfires across the country.

At Thursday’s Easter lunch, Richard Laroque, said he will likely vote Conservative for the first time because of what the party has said about the illicit drug trade.

“It looks like they’re going to crack down on these drug dealers that are killing our people,” said Laroque.

He said drugs have had a detrimental impact on Inuvik.

“It’s not the same place I grew up in. You have to lock your doors, you know? You have friends who you don’t want to see any more because they’re high and they’re always wanting,” Laroque said.

N.W.T. Conservative candidate Kimberly Fairman has previously said she and her party would pursue bail reform and funding for drug recovery programs.

Kotchilea said he’d like to see more federal funding put toward RCMP detachments in smaller communities to help stifle the drug trade, alongside more patrols.

“Some leaders want to see something done at the border,” said Kotchilea, referring to the territory’s borders with Alberta and the Yukon, which the N.W.T. government had in effect closed at points during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Kotchilea said community leaders “always use Covid as an example that we definitely manage who is coming in, coming out. Or even at the airports, why don’t we utilize these types of resources?”

“At the same time,” he said, “you want to target the criminals, the drug traffickers, not necessarily the people that are suffering with the addiction [and] falling victim to this cycle.”

By Claire McFarlane, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Cabin Radio

Travel costs associated with this reporting are funded by the Covering Canada: Election 2025 Fund.