Iqaluit port and Pond Inlet harbour: political promise or reality?

It's unclear whether federal funding for a deep-water port in Iqaluit and a small craft harbour in Pond Inlet will come through following last week'sfederal election.

In late July, days before the electionwas called, Nunavut MPLeona Aglukkaq came to Iqaluit promising as much as $63.7 million toward the $84.9 million cost of building a deep water port and small craft harbour in the city.

A month earlier, Aglukkaq made a similar announcementpromising that the federal government would contribute upto $30 million of the $40 million needed to build asmall craft harbour in Pond Inlet.

It's marine infrastructure that the co-chair of Iqaluit'sAmarok Hunters and Trappers Association and the Baffin Fisheries Coalition, Methuselah Kunuk, says is overdue. He says boating and the annual sealift would be much safer and easier if there was a port and small craftharbour.

"We need them now," Kunuk says.

"If we started now, we would probably have one in two or three years if the plan was going the way it was going. I don't know how it's going to be with the new government."

That's a question many are asking sinceAglukkaq lost her seat to Liberal candidate Hunter Tootoo, as the Liberals took over the House of Commons.

During the election campaign, Tootoo promised that any money committed by the Conservatives would stay put under a Liberal Government, and he maintains that position.

"If the money has been committed and is committed, it will stay committed," says Tootoo.

"We won't know until we get a chance to open up the books and see what is actually there, but it will be one of the top things on my list to check."

What's unclear is what it means for the funds to be considered "committed." The Conservatives said during the campaign that their pre-election announcements were commitments, but no binding agreements between the federal and the territorial governments have beensigned on the port and small craft harbour.

"From what I understand, there hasn't been a actual contribution agreement signed," says Iqaluit-Tasiluk MLA George Hickes.

But Hickes is optimistic the projects will happen.

"As far as I am aware, those projects are going to be going forward and they are going to be doing some of the geo-technical work," he says.

Some of that preliminary work by the Nunavut governmenthas already begun in Iqaluit and Pond Inlet withthe hope that the money promised will be delivered.