NNSL (Jan 13/97) - The territorial government calls Footprints 2 a positive step forward, but its support is not unqualified.

Deputy premier Goo Arlooktoo released the government's response to the second major report of the Nunavut Implementation Commission (NIC) Tuesday in Iqaluit.

The 72-page document details a number of concerns the government has as division looms, among them:

• NIC's qualifications for the transfer of GNWT staff in Nunavut to the Nunavut government

• the feasibility of the degree of decentralization recommended by NIC

• the importance of having a judicial system in place by the time of division

• the need to establish federal-territorial funding for the delivery of programs to both the western and eastern territories

The hardest line the government takes concerns the issue of the transfer of staff.

"Existing GNWT staff working in Nunavut should be automatically transferred to the Nunavut government with all terms and conditions of employment in tact," says the report.

In Footprints 2, however, the NIC says transfers should be subject to "a satisfactory performance evaluation."

Footprints goes further, saying the GNWT should not enter into any employment agreements, collective or otherwise, that would prevent the Nunavut government "from changing the size and make-up of its work force on reasonable notice and subject to ... reasonable compensation."

Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. will be releasing its 140-page response to Footprints 2 and the NIC's supplementary report on electoral and legislative issues on Jan. 27, said president Jose Kusugak.

The federal government's response will also come at the end of the month, said Lynne Boyer, spokesperson for the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.