Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

NNSL (Mar 12/99) - Holding a megaphone and wearing a large placard that read "GNWT PLAY FAIR, PAY EQUITY NOW" Jean-Francois Des Lauriers led a protest of 16 public-sector workers outside Western Arctic MP Ethel Blondin-Andrew's Franklin Avenue office Tuesday afternoon.

Regional executive vice-president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, Des Lauriers, like the other protesters, was bundled up against a sudden snow-squall.

Des Lauriers warmed spirits, however, by calling out a litany of complaints against government -- including failure to settle the GNWT pay-equity issue, recent moves by Ottawa against Employment Insurance and superannuation pensions and cuts to Yellowknifers' isolated-post benefits -- while protesters took up cries of "Shame!"

Des Lauriers said the protest was timed to coincide with a pay-equity hearing before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal taking place at the Explorer Hotel.

"We're here before the office of our member of parliament, a Liberal cabinet minister, because Jean Chretien promised when he was in opposition that he would go along with the result of a pay-equity tribunal," he said, "but the whole approach of government is delay, delay, delay."

Des Lauriers said Blondin-Andrew has argued that the PSAC members' complaints are not part of her portfolio and his assistant, Karen Amotte, said Thursday that the MP's office was deserted during the protest.

"We want her to tell us that the Mackenzie River crossing is an all-weather road," Amotte said, referring to the isolation-post cuts that she said came despite the fact that Yellowknife does not enjoy year-round access to the south.

"When Toronto is snowed in, they call in the army," shouted Des Lauriers during the rally, "but though we're cut off from the south three weeks every year, they cut our allowance."

Wearing a "TREASURY BOARD DRIVE TO YELLOWKNIFE BEFORE YOU CUT OUR IPA" placard, Suzette Montreuil, an occupational therapist at Stanton Regional Hospital, said the GNWT has been "single-mindedly antagonistic" about settling the pay-equity issue.

Postal worker Dale Bouchard said she hoped the protest would not be the last.

"Hopefully we can get more people and have more rallies," she said.

"It's time for unionized labour to stand up and fight because it's the only way we're going to achieve anything."