Rankin Inlet (Sep 29/04) - With the slash of a few pens on paper, a new era in municipal training became official recently.

Mac Clendenning, president of Nunavut Arctic College; Chuck Gilhuly, executive director of the Municipal Training Organization; Ian Fremantle, chief administrative officer for Iqaluit; and Tom Rich, deputy minister of the Department of Community and Government Services, signed the contract for the Municipal Government Certificate Program Sept. 9 during meetings in Rankin Inlet.

The program offers training in five core courses, as well as seven specialty courses designed for municipal administrators across the territory.

"The program is designed to promote training in every community in Nunavut," said Clendenning. Courses include management communications, introduction to computers, introduction to Northern government, human resource management and public sector finance.

The courses started Sept. 20 at all campuses, as well as in 25 of the 26 community learning centres across the territory.

Clendenning expects the majority of takers to be current municipal workers, but says the training is open to everyone.

With budget cuts in the last 10 years, municipalities have lost trained workers in key positions, said Gilhuly.

"One of the results is that you have a lack of management structure," he said.

The new program will alleviate what Gilhuly calls "crisis management" among administrative teams, where all decisions end up going to the SAO.

"We can increase the level of performance and program development in every municipality in Nunavut," said Gilhuly.

Once the five core courses are completed, training can begin in the specialized areas, such as recreation leader, planning and land administrator and economic development officer.

Long time coming

Planning for the program started about 10 years ago, taking a full year to implement, said Clendenning.

SAO's across Nunavut showed their support for the program at the Rankin meeting.

"They see this as a positive development, one that should have come sooner," said Clendenning.

"This has been an amazing collaboration between all the participants," said Gilhuly.

Registration for the courses -- which each run for approximately a week at different times throughout the school year -- is growing, with 133 people already pre-registered.