Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

BAKER LAKE (Feb 17/99) - A public apology from a local radio station is being sought by Vincent Steele, principal of Baker Lake's Rachel Arngnammaktiq elementary and Jonah Amitnaaq secondary schools.

The request is in response to CKQM's noon broadcast on Jan. 28 when a Baker Lake teacher was publicly ridiculed. xxxKivalliq News has learned Steele has filed an official complaint with the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission regarding the matter.

In the complaint Steele wrote, "apparently, a disgruntled parent of a student called into the radio station and was permitted to go on the air and make accusations to the effect that the teacher did not know how to deal with students, did not know how to manage the assigned class and was intimidated by students. Furthermore, the parent stated the reason the teacher was not effective was because the teacher was Caucasian."

Steele said he is very concerned about possible damage to the reputation of a good teacher and the Baker Lake schools as a result of the broadcast.

"I can attest, as the teacher's direct supervisor, there is absolutely no evidence which would support any of these statements," said Steele. "The Baker Lake schools work very hard to instill confidence in the public and take full responsibility to ensure employees perform to acceptable standards.

"This type of irresponsible broadcasting, however, can do nothing but shake the public's confidence in the school system, not to mention what it may do to an individual's teaching career."

Steele has requested CKQM be required to broadcast an apology to the teacher involved for three consecutive days during its noon broadcast, write letters of apology to the teacher and the schools and post a written apology in the community.

Joan Scottie, CKQM Radio Society chair, said this was an unfortunate incident. She said the society fully intends to deal with the matter as soon as its members can meet, adding everything in the community has fallen behind with the ongoing search-and-rescue efforts of the past two weeks.

"It is our policy, which we tell all our operators, that no one is to go on the air who doesn't have a portfolio from the society or a committee," said Scottie. "Unfortunately, on this day, we had a part-time operator on who only works when someone else can't be there and is not very experienced.

"We will get to the bottom of this. The caller was speaking in Inuktitut and I'm worried the translation may not have been totally correct. It's hard for our radio station. We have very old equipment which makes it almost impossible to screen callers. We have to be fair with everybody, but we also have to take responsibility for what goes on the air."

Baker Lake District Education Authority chair Joe Aupalutuq said it was irresponsible of the parent to air her concerns in public. He said the parent should have went directly to the principal with any concerns and dealt with the matter directly, in-house.

"We should appreciate that southern teachers leave their homes and families to come up here and teach our children," said Aupalutuq.

"They stay here for nine or 10 months and to treat them like this is irresponsible and shows no respect."