Killing industry with kindness

Page 4

The Department of Economic Development and Tourism has once again embarked on an ambitious scheme to help northern artists. This time they have singled out the carving industry and will try to help by importing 132.5 metric tonnes into 23 N.W.T communities.

The Stone, which will come from North Vancouver, Virginia and Montana, was picked from a number of samples sent to 34 N.W.T. communities. The three southern locations each produce a unique stone that closely matches stone already used by carvers in northern communities.

The reason economic development officials give for importing stone from the south is a shortage of good stone in the North and the high costs involved with quarrying it. However, they caution importing stone is only a short-term measure and hope a northern quarry industry will develop to help fill the gap.

Importing stone fits in very well with the latest economic development strategy of the government of the Northwest Territories. Officials see an industry making money ($16.8 million last year) and have decided it could produce a lot more if some of the bottlenecks are removed. That, along with an expensive marketing campaign, is supposed to make sure more people are able to buy Inuit art.

Certainly this sounds very nice. No one can deny carving is a very important industry and it would be great if by simply giving the carvers more stone they would be able to make more money. However, the industry is a little more complicated than that.

Industry people, contrary to what economic development officials believe, are saying the Inuit art market is already soft an is likely to get softer. It, like most other businesses in Canada, is beginning to see a downward trend in demand as Canadians brace themselves for bad economic times.

Industry people are also concerned more stone will not just mean more carvings, but will mean more inferior carvings, undermining the industry as a whole. Arviat is one of the communities that has ordered stone, and according to one businessman, has asked for almost double the amount he supplied to the communities two years ago, which they are just now running out of. The southern supply is supposed to last one year, which means the community will produce almost four times as many carvings as they did last year. Industry officials feel there is no way the market would be able to support such an increase. However, economic development officials seemed unaware anyone even supplied stone to Arviat.

In addition to the problems of oversupply in a soft market, many industry people are concerned the money being used to buy this southern stone ($200,000) could be better used to help create a quarrying industry in the north. There are a number of new and used sites that could be developed to produce enough stone to supply all N.W.T. communities. And while economic development officials said they want to encourage more northern quarrying, they readily admit southern stone is cheaper to bring in.

Yet they are again hurting some people in the industry by doing this. The Arvial supplier had plans to send another 20,000 pounds of stone to the community this summer. However, he has now canceled his plans because of the government's plans to supply the community.

All in all it would seem economic development may be killing a thriving industry with kindness.. Industry people feel the market must be carefully controlled to sustain demand. They also feel the quality of the work must remain high. By increasing the amount of stone available it is unlikely the industry will be able to control either demand or quality.

Hopefully economic development is right in this case and the 2,000 or so carvers in the N.W.T will reap the rewards of having good available stone. The N.W.T needs industries such as this if it is ever going to be able to gain economic independence. However, only time will tell if this quick-fix solution will actually contribute to the development of a strong arts industry inthe North.

(Editorial in Nunatsiaq News / 6 July 1990)