Quebec on the move | Changing Nunavik one 2 x 4 at a time

Nunavik faces a critical housing shortage. And the skilled local workforce is insufficient to meet renovation and construction needs. However, the region has been able to count for six months on the team of Patrick Payette and Alec Saunders who have undertaken to change the situation, one 2 x 4 at a time. With success: in six months, the business-school cooperative they created has already collected more than two million in contracts in the North.

For ten years, Patrick Payette traveled regularly to Nunavik for construction contracts as a carpenter-joiner. For different companies and for his own. Then he was a trainer. But last year, wanting to involve the local population much more on construction sites, he launched a construction cooperative made up of 75% Inuit.

“The need for housing is great in Nunavik. And the need for worker training too. You have to think about doing things differently,” says Mr. Payette.

Resident of Kuujjuak, Alec Saunders, 28, has accepted the position of first president of the Ikajurtigiit Solidarity Cooperative (this word in Inuktitut means: let’s all help together). The Coop offers both training to its apprentices and carries out construction-renovation contracts. “It will help provide quality jobs. We can also offer better prices. Really, having this project in Nunavik will help”, believes Mr. Saunders.

To be considered

Every year, approximately 200 new dwellings are built in Nunavik. Despite everything, with the growth of the population, the housing deficit is estimated at 1,000 units, year after year, notes Mr. Payette. And that is without taking into account the renovation needs of existing housing. “Several were built in the 1970s and 1980s. And the climate is tough for houses in Nunavik,” he says.

When The Press met them for the first time in March, Patrick Payette and Alec Saunders were returning from a stay in Kuujjuarapik where they renovated six housing units.

On each site, Mr. Payette does training with his fellow apprentices. “Knowledge is something to be shared”, says the man who claims to have “fallen in love with the North” during his first stay in 2012. Especially for “the environment, the population and the pace”. So far, the Coop’s training program has been a resounding success. Of the 12 members, there are eight Inuit apprentices. Or as much as the vocational school in the region.

Met by The Press, Bobby Saviadjuk, 23, of Salluit, is one of these apprentices. He mentions that what he likes the most in the Coop Ikajurtigiit is “being considered”. Davidee Nassak, from Kangirsuk, describes himself as a “lover of wood”. Which is rather ironic for a native of Nunavik where no trees grow… But for Mr. Nassak, the Coop gives him “the opportunity to learn even more” about his trade, while earning a living.

It is mainly companies from southern Quebec that obtain contracts for the construction and renovation of houses in Nunavik.

Cut off from the rest of the province, the region has to rely on boat transport in the summer to obtain materials. There is also the expensive air transport. The construction costs are therefore very high.

As a result, Inuit workers who need training are often confined to less interesting tasks. “Sometimes they have 10,000 hours of experience, but they just cleaned the site and laid wool… It’s not interesting for them”, notes Mr. Payette.

28-year-old Samuel Mifsud, from Kangiqsujuaq, has worked in maintenance for seven years. But he hopes to have access to more interesting positions. For him, the Coop “is the best solution”, he explained to The Press.

From 2018 to 2022, Mr. Payette was a trainer for the Sanajiit project, which aimed precisely to promote the integration of Inuit workers in construction projects in the North. “I was going to coach, but I wasn’t creating a job. When I started asking students: “Would you like to be a member of a construction Coop where you would have a say in contracts, schedules, business?” People said yes. »

Rethinking the home

Since its launch in December, the Coop has won 2 million in contracts. Mainly with the Kativik Municipal Housing Office. “We are also going to build 21 sheds in Kuujjuaq this summer. We have contracts in Kuujuarapiq, Umiujaq, Aupaluk…” proudly lists Mr. Saunders.

The Cooperative has 12 members, 75% Inuit, aged 21 to 29. “They are not just employees. They make decisions as a gang. It makes a big difference in attendance,” says Mr. Payette.

Construction workers working in Nunavik sometimes suggest that Inuit workers are not assiduous. For Patrick Payette, it is above all that the prism through which we look at the situation is not the same. He mentions that a beginner worker earns $25 an hour. “That seems like a lot. But the cost of living is so high in Nunavik that it’s the minimum wage,” he says.

Mr. Saunders adds that for the Inuit, it can be intimidating to go to work for companies where several employees sometimes only speak French. “You can feel very lonely,” he says.

Add to that the attractive power of jobs in local organizations. And that makes “several small factors that limit the integration of Inuit workers in construction,” notes Mr. Payette. The Coop wants to help remedy the situation.