Vital Amenities

"Our landfill is past due, our sewage treatment has been a massive failure, our cemetery has been a massive failure, all our buildings are in disrepair (City Hall carpet is duct taped together), our emergency services need a new building and the list goes on."
Kenny Bell, Iqaluit city councillor

The city of Iqaluit finds itself conflicted about its priorities. The Arctic community has a population of 7,000 and it had a community pool built in 1970 with a capacity of 35, and which had to be closed as a result of severe cracks in the pool's basin. Seven years ago faced with losing their swimming pool ratepayers had balked at rebuilding it for $12-million.

It



It is expensive to build a heated pool in Arctic conditions, quite prohibitive compared to elsewhere since Northern pools must be equipped with cooling systems to ensure that the thousands of litres of heated water will not melt the permafrost upon which the pool is, of necessity, built. If the systems fail, the building will sink, the pool cracks, occasioning a multi-million repair bill, or quite simply abandonment of the pool.

So building a pool in Iqaluit is no simple, inexpensive feat. Still, commented one individual, "The physical, mental and social well-being of northerners far outweighs any cost that this or any other building would ever cost", in response to a design drawn up by Stantec Architecture Ltd. Their plan is for a facility including two pools, a fitness centre and two saunas; actually a three-storey, water-slide-equipped Aquatic Centre.


"Iqaluit needs a pool", agreed city councillor Kenny Bell, "but with all of our current problems the $40-million centre is not one of them." Right. $40-million.

Ottawa was asked to fund the project but declined. So the 500 ratepayers of Iqaluit decided to vote 57% in favour of borrowing the funding for the new facilities on their own. A staggering amount of money to burden their future, but what the hell, it's only money.

Extreme weather conditions, no road link to the south, everything is horribly expensive in Nunavut. The community's small French-language school cost $4.5-million to build, a newly-opened K-12 school in Inuvik cost a whopping $100-million, a new Iqaluit airport to open in 2017 will cost roughly $300-million. The federal government could be convinced that these facilities rated as necessary.

The elaborate pool coming in at $40-million, possibly more, since expenses tend to accelerate once building is underway, not so much. "What we're really doing here is touching the future for the kids of tomorrow", said mayor John Graham.