Iqaluit now has the only retail alcohol store in the territory. But will better regulation help curb addiction? It’s early September, and dozens of people are gathered outside a building in Nunavut’s capital. They form the only lineup in the city of nearly 8,000 people. On Twitter, residents jokingly warn each other to use the washroom before joining the wait, to bring a book, Amazon Beauty to dress for the crisp fall air. The mood is "jovial," according to Kyle Sheppard, a local. Someone set up a barbecue to sell hot dogs to those standing outside. The territory’s finance minister was at the ribbon-cutting ceremony; he bought a twelve-pack of Corona. To most people in North America, the opening of a beer and wine store is nothing special. But in Iqaluit, it’s the first instance of retail sales of alcoholic beverages in nearly fifty years. For decades, Nunavut has flirted with prohibition. All communities in the territory, apart from Iqaluit, currently have some sort of constraint on buying alcohol. Post has been created by GSA Conte nt Generator DE MO .
In four communities, drinks have to be shipped from government-owned warehouses in Rankin Inlet or Iqaluit, or from outside the territory. In fourteen others, alcohol can be purchased only with the approval of a local committee. In the six remaining communities, possessing alcohol is prohibited. This new outlet, owned and operated by the territorial government, is an experiment in storefront sales, making Iqaluit the only community in Nunavut where residents can buy bottles and cans in town. The Iqaluit Beer and Wine Store brings the promise of better alcohol consumption to the North: responsible drinkers will face fewer obstacles, problem drinkers will have access to beer instead of hard liquor, and money that might otherwise fund bootleggers will now go to the government. Or, at least, that’s the hope. The store, which is part of a three-year pilot project to reduce the harm of alcohol consumption, came out of a task force struck in 2010. The task force was composed of doctors, RCMP members, former politicians, and other regional representatives, and it released a report in 2012 that recommended an overhaul of Nunavut’s alcohol regulations.
Three years later, in a non-binding plebiscite, Iqaluit residents voted in favour of opening a beer and wine store. More communities are sure to follow. It’s an experiment similar to what Canada is doing with marijuana-attempting to replace the black market with one that is regulated and a high-potency product with one that’s more moderate. But not everyone is happy about the new venture. Here, the stakes are higher: multiple studies and surveys from the Government of Nunavut and the RCMP link alcohol to the territory’s crime and suicide rates, which are among the highest in Canada. In March 2016, as politicians discussed opening the store in Iqaluit, Paul Okalik, a former premier and then minister of the territory’s health and justice departments, resigned from cabinet in protest. Like some others, he believes the store will only make problems in the territory worse. The last retail alcohol store in Iqaluit closed down in the mid-seventies-then, the city was called Frobisher Bay-after a drunk man ran his snowmobile into a six-year-old boy.
The people living in what is now Nunavut have witnessed a tremendous amount of change over the past century. In the early 1900s, interaction between those living in the region and the Canadian government was irregular. But federal politicians slowly became more and more involved. Not long ago, hunting was the only reliable food source for Sales most Inuit families; now, they can shop at the local grocery store. Food caches dug into permafrost or stashed under piles of rocks are now electric freezers. Igloos insulated by snow and heated with an oil lamp are now houses with furnaces or boiler systems. Dog teams are now snowmobiles or trucks. These transformations have often not been gentle. A variety of government policies in the Northwest Territories-from which Nunavut separated in 1999-in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s discouraged the traditional seasonal migration of Indigenous peoples and placed families into newly formed communities close to government services.