Posted: Friday, 16 June 2006

On a sunny, snowy, late winter’s weekend in April 2006, thirty trade unionists and community partners met together in the Francophone Centre in Iqaluit, Nunavut. Participants had travelled thousands of kilometres from all over the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Quebec to attend the Northern Territories Federation of Labour Biennial Convention. The Convention was followed by a daylong roundtable on health care organized by the Canadian Labour Congress. The community of Iqaluit was represented, as was Yellowknife, Cambridge Bay, Whale Cove, Carlisle, Chesterfield Inlet, Ottawa, Fort Smith, Regina, and Gatineau.

The opportunity for the day’s discussion came about as a result of the 2005 Montreal Convention which gave the Canadian Labour Congress the mandate to hold roundtables across the country. Delegates resolved the CLC would encourage discussion on how to defend public health care. In February, the Congress held one roundtable in Ottawa dealing with health care benefits issues. The Iqaluit health care roundtable was the second in the series and focussed on the challenges facing public health care systems in the North. A national roundtable on public health care was held in Ottawa in June, and other regional roundtables will take place later in 2006.

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