Team Nunavut filling out
Staffing, financing moving forward

by Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

NNSL (July 7/97) - Jack Anawak is looking for a few good people -- one right now, and another 150 over the next 10 months.

And while the interim commissioner oversees staffing of the new Nunavut government, officials from the West, the East, the GNWT and the federal government will be attempting to tally the money the two territories will need.

Article 23 of the Nunavut Final Agreement requires that by the time of division, April 1, 1999, half of those working in the Nunavut government must be Inuit.

Though the interim commissioners' office is not bound by Article 23, Anawak's principal secretary, David Kravitz, said that goal is currently being exceeded.

So far, the office is 62 per cent Inuit, having staffed six positions in addition to the ones Anawak and Kravitz occupy:

  • Marius Tungilik, director of human resources
  • Penelope Muller, principle policy advisor
  • Katheryne Parker, Ottawa co-ordinator
  • Rosemary Cooper, policy officer for social and community affairs
  • Kitty Markwell, receptionist
  • Pudloo Arnaquq, administrative assistant

    The next position that will be filled is the manager of public affairs, said Kravitz.

    "We realize we haven't done a particularly good job of telling the media what we're doing, and we want to bring somebody in who is more focused on getting our message out," said Kravitz of the newest position.

    In his letter of instruction to Anawak, former Indian affairs minister Ron Irwin spoke of the need to keep the public informed of progress toward division.

    Kravitz said the office will be looking for more human resources people in the very near future.

    Meanwhile, on the financing front, a team of bureaucrats will be spending the summer figuring out how to calculate the amount of money each of the two new territories will get from the federal government after division.

    The team includes representatives of the federal government, GNWT, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., the Nunavut interim commissioner's office and a coalition of Western Arctic leaders.

    "They will come up with a formula on the way funding discussions should proceed," said NTI executive director Alex Campbell.

    Campbell said the team will be itemizing such things as ongoing funding requirements, transition costs, costs of infrastructure.

    A special committee with leaders from each group, as well as the Yukon, which will be negotiating funding at the same time, will review the detailed work of the committee in mid-late September, said Campbell.


    NTI still firm on direct election

    Bureaucratic concerns over the decision to directly elect Nunavut's first premier are not shared by Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.

    Tom Isaac, head of the GNWT's secretariat division, last week told a reporter for a southern newspaper "a recognition is developing that there's not enough time to do it."

    Nunavut leaders and the territorial government agreed the first leader of Nunavut would be elected directly by the people. That consensus was reached at a leaders summit in Cambridge Bay held in February.

    In the NWT, government MLAs vote at the beginning of their term on who among them will serve as premier.

    NTI executive director Alex Campbell said last week his group's position on the subject remains unchanged.

    "As of this day NTI is still of the position that direct election should be considered," said Campbell. "If there's been a change of position we haven't been involved in that process."