September 7, 2001

Iqaluit to get Canadian Forces office

Full-time officer to be posted to city within the year

MIRIAM HILL
Nunatsiaq News

IQALUIT — The military is coming back to Iqaluit.

Art Eggleton, minister of national defence, announced last week that the Canadian Forces will once again station a full-time officer in Iqaluit. The position will be filled within the year, he said.

Eggleton said re-opening a Canadian Forces office here is part of his plan to expand the department's presence in the North.

He also announced that the Forces' Canadian Ranger program will receive an additional $205,000 a year. That's on top of the program's current $4.8 million annual budget.

"We're going to expand our Ranger program by about 40 per cent and the Junior Ranger program will be virtually doubled," Eggleton said. "We're going to have additional patrols in remote and isolated areas throughout the North."

"It means we can react faster, we can understand the issues better."
- Col. Kevin McLeod, commander of the Canadian Forces Northern Area

Col. Kevin McLeod, commander of the Canadian Forces Northern Area, is based in Yellowknife. He said having an office in Iqaluit will create tighter ties between the community and the Department of National Defence.

"It means we can react faster, we can understand the issues better. It means when we work with other government departments, for security and sovereignty with the RCMP, with customs… we've got a man or a woman on the ground.

"It's a huge, vast territory," McLeod said. "It takes me time to get cranked up and moved across in a couple of hours, so it would have been better to have someone right there."

Eggleton said a Navy ship will also pay a visit to the city next year — something that hasn't happened since the 1980s.

The sailing is an effort to project sovereignty, McLeod said.

"It sends a message to the world at large and to Canadians that the Canadian Forces is Arctic-capable and capable of going to our communities," he said.