Home page

Text size

E-mail this page

REGINA, SASK.
He drowned fishing for food for RCMP sled dogs in 1954, but it took a decade of dedication by Spec. Constable Andrew Ooyoumut's granddaughter Deborah Kigjugalik Webster to get the RCMP to recognize that Ooyoumut died while on duty.

Chief Superintendent Wade Blake, commanding officer of RCMP G Division, hands Sally Webster a wreath to lay at the memorial wall where her father, Special Const. Andrew Ooyoumut was honoured September 11. On the right is Ooyoumut's granddaughter Deborah Kigjugalik Webster. - photo courtesy of Christine Ross/RCMP-GRC

The honour finally came Sept. 11 when Governor-General David Johnston and RCMP Commissioner William Elliott recognized Ooyoumut's sacrifice at the RCMP national memorial service in Regina, Sask..

It has been a long battle for Webster to get recognition for her grandfather, who joined the RCMP June 1, 1946 and died July 21, 1954 at age 37.

"He had a number of duties," Webster said, "including interpreting, visiting camps, giving out family allowances. One of his other duties was looking after the sled dogs and catching fish for the winter supply of dog food. He drowned while tending the nets south of Baker Lake."

Webster stumbled across this piece of her family history during her work as a heritage researcher in Yellowknife. Noting he was killed on duty, she discovered the RCMP did not acknowledge this fact. She filed an access-to-information request, and was given her grandfather's work file, which contained many concealed sections from his supervisor's report of his death. Eventually, the information commissioner ordered the RCMP to reveal the concealed information about the fact Ooyoumut was indeed on duty.

"I was trying to get an answer to what they consider in the line of duty," she said. "I wasn't able to get answers until I wrote to News/North and the story was picked up by CBC radio, TV and the Internet."

Acknowledging his duty status, Ooyoumut was added to the RCMP's Northern wall of honour in Yellowknife in 2000, but not to the national memorial wall.

Webster appealed to superintendent Dan Fudge, then a criminal operations officer for the RCMP in Iqaluit, and now regional superintendent for the British Columbia Sheriff Service.

"I just thought that he should have been recognized as a member and that he died on duty," Fudge said. "That's all I tried to portray to the organization."

Now, after a decade of work, the RCMP changed its position and decided to recognize Ooyoumut at the Sept. 11 service.

"It was very touching to hear his name being recognized the way he should have been," Webster said. "It touched my heart that Ooyoumut was recognized because I know my family suffered from his loss. My grandmother was 34 years old when her husband died, had four children and no breadwinner and hunter. For the children to live without their father, it must have been difficult."

Webster's mother and two aunts were at the ceremony; her grandmother, Ooyoumut's wife Rhoda Qaqsauq, died in 1999. The women wore pukiliks made by Qaqsauq at the ceremony in her memory.

"It does bring some closure for our family," Webster said. "There is still a lot of work for me to do. The pension matter has not been resolved. Other special constables retired with pensions, including Ooyoumut's two successors.

"When the RCMP debated about giving Ooyoumut's wife some compensation, they debated whether they should give her two or three months of his salary," she added. "They gave her two months pay, and said that Clare Dent, his supervisor, would have to supervise the spending of that money. He went with her to the Hudson Bay trading post and spent her money. He had to ensure the best interests of the children were taken into account.

"What did they think she was going to do with the money? She had a family to look after."

It's an injustice that remains to be righted, asserted superintendent Fudge.

"This man died on patrol with the RCMP," Fudge said. "We went out on the land and we could never have survived without the special constables and guides who came with us. They literally saved our lives on many occasions. He was an employee, and his contributions should be recognized, including all benefits that go along with that, which means pension."

Deborah Kigjigalik Webster agrees, and hopes the RCMP will remedy the situation.

"In those days, aboriginal people were not treated as equals. If they were, my grandfather would have been recognized from the beginning and the pension matter would not be an issue."

According to Cpl. Kevin Lewis of RCMP V Division in Iqaluit, pensions are handled by a separate division of the federal government, and the pension board's decision about Ooyoumut's pension is not affected by the RCMP's decision to honour him on its memorial wall.

Const. Michael Potvin, who drowned when his patrol boat capsized last summer in the Yukon, was also recognized at the ceremony.

Special Const. Ooyoumut will be added to the Canadian Police and Peace Officers' Memorial in Ottawa next September. Const. Potvin is being added to the memorial this month.

We welcome your opinions. Click here to e-mail a letter to the editor.