Doug Ashbury
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Dec 10/99) - Indian Affairs and Northern Development Minister Robert Nault has decided no headquarters staff will be transferred to Yellowknife.

"We don't see moving employees as productive," Nault said Wednesday.

Nault justified his decision by explaining that jobs will ultimately be transferred to the GNWT through the process of devolution.

"In the end, employees will move because of devolution," he said.

"We're committed to that. We're going to spend time and energy moving that process along" for all three territories.

Northerners argue that people making decisions on NWT issues should be getting first-hand experience, and that should mean DIAND staff should be transferred to Yellowknife through decentralization.

Yellowknife Mayor David Lovell called Nault's decision "colonial."

"I think the whole thing is unacceptable," he said.

Lovell said there will never be true decentralization as long as there's a parallel structure elsewhere.

"As long as there's a DIAND infrastructure in Ottawa, I don't believe we'll see real devolution."

YK Chamber of Commerce past president Gord Van Tighem was also critical of the minister's decision.

One of the "handicaps" of devolution is that the people who are ultimately "devolved" will have no Northern experience. Transferring jobs first would promote first-hand experience prior to devolution, he said.

"We're disappointed and we'll continue to promote the concept of people residing in the areas where they are advising to," Van Tighem said.

NWT Premier Jim Antoine called Nault's decision unacceptable and counterproductive.

"The NWT, Nunavut and Yukon all support moving staff who deal with Northern programs to the North," Antoine said.

"We all know about the inefficiencies of the current system and we know it has to change. It is no longer acceptable to have decisions about Northern resources being made in Hull," Antoine said.

"Short of transferring responsibility for Northern resources to the North, the best way of doing this is to have the people who make decisions about the North live here."

Antoine intends to raise the issue with Nault at next week's Aboriginal Affairs ministers meeting in Ottawa.

Earlier this year, a government report examined three scenarios on transferring DIAND jobs to the NWT. The scenarios included moving none, some or all of DIAND's 100 jobs from Hull to Yellowknife.

Moving federal jobs to the North may increase the level of service Northerners get from the government, but it would be costly, and result in duplication and communications problems, the report concluded.

The March 25 report, entitled Assessment of the Potential Transfer of Program Responsibilities from the National Capital Region to the NWT, was part of a government study on the proposed move.

It examined the impact of different decentralization scenarios, from the status quo, to creating a regional office in the North that would have take the lead on issues affecting Northerners.

The report includes preliminary estimates of the costs of decentralizing DIAND jobs. Annual added costs for the various scenarios range from zero to $7 million. Preliminary estimates of the one-time cost of implementing any changes range zero to $5 million.