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Smuggling drugs and alcohol into Gjoa Haven through the Yellowknife Airport should warrant improvements in security, Mayor Raymond Quqshuun told a panel at the Nunavut Association of Municipalities’ annual general meeting on Nov. 12.
Yellowknife is accessible by road through Alberta, and there’s no airport security on flights from Yellowknife to Nunavut communities.
Quqshuun, whose community prohibits alcohol and cannabis, said bootlegging is rife.
“I think we’re lacking searches and airport checks and stuff like that, either out of Yellowknife or in our communities. And I think that’s going to be important in the future, that airports should have those services,” he said.
The mayor noted that many flights to and from Gjoa Haven are routed through Yellowknife.
He said he’s worried for residents of his community due to the proliferation of addictive substances in Gjoa Haven.
“I hear people are drinking, I’m worried… I hope everything goes well, [that] nobody’s going to freeze. There’s no abuse at home. It creates all those things, alcohol, and today we started to hear that drugs and hard drugs are coming into our community,” Quqshuun said.
The Yellowknife Airport is a hub for illegal activity, including alcohol and drug smuggling into Nunavut, according to the territory’s former top police officer, Andrew Blackadar.
Now the assistant deputy minister of public safety at the Government of Nunavut [GN], Blackadar said he’s reached out to the federal government to intervene.
Transport Canada is in charge of all airport security in Canada, he explained.
“The [GN] minister did write to the federal public safety minister and discussed that very issue because that is a corridor for drugs, for alcohol, for a number of illegal things coming through, because it’s so easy to drive it up and not get screened,” Blackadar said.
However, governments need to balance the right to safety with the right to privacy, he pointed out. Not everyone can be randomly searched, he added.
Nunavut RCMP’s new commanding officer, Kent Pike, was appointed to his position on Oct. 24.
Pike said he’s confronting a different source of smuggling.
“Our biggest bootlegger is Canada Post. You know, whether people could go in on the airlines undetected, a lot of stuff comes through Canada Post,” Pike said.
Nunavut RCMP attempted to legally screen mail entering the territory through Canada Post for drugs, Pike said, by securing warrants through a justice of the peace.
But complaints from the head of Canada Post to RCMP commissioner Mike Duheme in Ottawa about the screening of mail halted the practice, according to Pike.
“Because everyone’s protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” Pike said. “What I can say is that there’s hope on the way. There’s a new bill making its way through [Parliament] now that will give us certain powers that doesn’t exist right now to help that.”
For Quqshuun, seeing people struggle with addiction and substance abuse motivates him to try to stop smuggling into his community.
The problem has deep roots, he acknowledged.
“Alcohol has been introduced to Inuit a long time ago, maybe through whaling, airlines and military in the North,” he said. “And it has never stopped coming in, and I don’t think it’s going to stop in the future.”
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