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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Deborah Kigjugalik Webster has spent the last 15 years fighting for her grandfather's honour.

"I want justice for my family," she says.

Piles of accumulated service files and correspondences with federal institutions are spread across a table in a Yellowknife coffee shop, documenting the final days - and struggle for recognition - of her grandfather, RCMP Special Const. Andrew Ooyoumut of Baker Lake.

Deborah Kigjugalik Webster points to a plaque recognizing her grandfather, Special Const. Andrew Ooyoumut on a Wall of Honour outside the Yellowknife RCMP detachment. Webster does not understand why Ooyoumut, who died on patrol at a fish camp in 1954, can be honoured on the Yellowknife wall commemorating RCMP members who died on duty, but won't be recognized on the national honour roll. - Herb Mathisen/NNSL photo

The work began as a hobby, with Webster - a heritage consultant - searching the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre's archives. As she got more information on the story she had heard told by her mother while growing up, the work became a passion. She has hounded federal access to information and privacy centres and various RCMP divisions and branches to get her hands on anything she could about her grandfather.

She encountered what she calls many "brick walls."

Ooyoumut died on RCMP patrol, drowning while tending nets at a fish camp on the Kikatavyuk River near Baker Lake in 1954. He has never received any national honour or recognition by the RCMP because his death had been reported as an accident and not a death of an on-duty officer.

Cpl. Clare Dent, now retired and living in Dartmouth, N.S., was in charge of the Baker Lake detachment at the time. He said it was hard to get people in Ottawa to appreciate the significance of Ooyoumut's death at the time because of the different circumstances found within Northern and southern detachments.

"(Those in Ottawa) have no idea what the way of life was like in those remote Arctic communities because they are so far removed from it," he said.

"You're never off duty in the North and he wasn't off duty," said Dent, who spent 14 years in the North.

Dent said he wrote until he "was blue in the bloody face" to Northern RCMP divisions stating Ooyoumut's case for recognition.

Finally, at a Yellowknife ceremony on April 13, 2000, Ooyoumut was recognized with his own plaque on a wall of honour devoted to those who died on duty. Webster's mother and aunt - Ooyoumut's daughters - both flew in from Baker Lake for the ceremony.

"We were so happy and full of mixed emotions at that time," said Webster, before being overcome by emotion.

"That honour was not given with the right intention," she said, wiping tears from her face.

Webster said she thought her grandfather was only included on the wall to appease Dent. She gave Dent credit for trying to correct the past, but said what he did was "too little, too late."

He should have reported the death as that of an on-duty member, she said.

"I didn't and I honestly don't know why I didn't," said Dent, in response to the filing of the report.

Despite the Northern ceremony, Ottawa still refused to honour Ooyoumut nationally. But recent changes to the national honours and recognition policy may open the door for a review to the case.

"The policy used to be a little different," said Christine Charron, acting national and international recognition specialist with the RCMP. "(A death) had to be in the line of duty. If it was an accident, it didn't make it eligible to be on the honour roll."

Section 22.9 of the RCMP Administration Manual states if there is an element of risk involved in the duty of the RCMP officer who died, the officer would be eligible for inclusion on the Honour Roll.

Charron would not comment on whether she thought there was an element of risk involved in tending nets at the camp.

Dent said he worked at the fish camps and knows firsthand the dangers involved.

"I can assure that there was risk," he said.

He said canoes could tip and ice conditions were never consistent.

Charron said the commanding officer of the Nunavut region could submit a request - along with any new information or testimonials - to the RCMP commissioner and the honours and recognitions review committee to look at the case again. Dent said he would offer his testimony to the committee.

Nunavut's commanding officer, Chief Supt. Marty Cheliak, had not heard of Ooyoumut's case before being contacted by Nunavut News/North.

From what he saw after reviewing the special constable's file, Cheliak said he was in agreement with Webster and Ooyoumut's family: Andrew Ooyoumut deserves a place on the honour roll.

"By surface review of the file, I think the family is absolutely correct. I believe Ooyoumut certainly deserves a place," he said. "We should never demean or diminish the fact that someone gave their life for the service of Canada."

Cheliak said before making a recommendation to the RCMP Commissioner, he would like to speak with Ooyoumut's family. He commended them for not giving up the fight.

"There is a great opportunity right now to follow up on this, so the timing is good," Cheliak said, acknowledging the national policy change.

Webster also wants to know if her family is entitled to compensation. Her grandmother Qaqsauq only received two months' salary and no pension following Ooyoumut's death.

Judy Lemen, a compensations manager with the RCMP in Vancouver, B.C., did not speak to the specific file, but said there is compensation that comes with an on-duty death, called a supplementary income plan or survivor income.

"What happens is the force will top up to what the member was making - his net pay - of 70 per cent and it will be topped up to the family until the time the member should have lived until age 65," said Lemen.

She said the pension would be indexed to take inflation into account. However, she also said this is what an officer's family would be entitled to now, and pension policy could have changed since the 1950s. She did not know what the entitlement the family would have had at that time.

"My grandmother died in 1999, so she hasn't seen justice, but at least my mother and her two sisters are still alive," said Webster.

Webster updates her family any time new information comes in.

"I sometimes feel bad about that because it is bringing it all back for them," she said.

Although recent developments may work in her favour, history tells Webster not to get too excited.

"I don't think this story is finished yet," she said.