Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

Cambridge Bay (Jan 24/00) - Hang onto your hats, Nunavummiut -- a whirlwind of activity is about to take over the lives of the territory's elected representatives.

To help them better deal with the flurry of legislative business that begins next month, a strategic planning session was held in Cambridge Bay recently.

Nine of the regular MLAs as well as the Speaker of the legislature were involved. According to John Quirke, the clerk of the Nunavut legislative assembly the workshops, which were planned last October, went off without a hitch.

"We had to stress to everybody that the months of February, March and April will be extremely busy and demanding on them. The fatigue factor will be high on all of us," said Quirke.

"What the members had to do was try to balance their time because all of this stuff is going to occur at once." As well as going over the rules of order and procedures to be followed in the house, the four-day retreat allowed the members the uninterrupted time they needed to draw up a plan to prepare for the budget business during the two legislative sessions planned for the spring.

Scheduled for Feb. 16 to 29 in Rankin Inlet and again towards the end of March in Iqaluit, the sessions will focus on the budget. A discussion of the Northwest Territories Power Corporation and the relationship between regular members and cabinet members will also be on the agenda.

Figures for the cost of moving the legislature to Rankin Inlet for ten days will be available at the end of April, but Quirke said he didn't expect it to cost much more than it does to sit in Iqaluit.

"All our costs will be in hotels, food and transportation, a lot of which is duplicated here anyways. We see the same costs here," he said.

He also noted that the Rankin Inlet sessions would serve the purpose of bringing the government closer to the people.

"(The government) decided to try Rankin as their first stop to see how well it goes."