Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

IQALUIT (July 12/99) - Major modifications were made last week to the plan for sharing government jobs between the communities of Nunavut.

Baker Lake and Pangnirtung lost the most jobs as a result of the changes to the government's decentralization plan.

Baker Lake, to be home to 65 government jobs under the decentralization plan the government revised last October, is now currently projected to receive 30 positions.

The difference, said Premier Paul Okalik, is the result of the government not knowing the outcome of negotiations with the NWT about the fate of the Workers' Compensation Board. The board was slated to be located in the Kivalliq community.

"We could put those figures in, but it would just be a paper promise," said Okalik.

Under the revised plan, 78 positions were to be located in Pangnirtung. With the education council and nine hospital administrative jobs moved out of Pang, that figure has been reduced to 51.

Okalik said the nine hospital administration positions have been moved to Iqaluit because that's where the hospital is.

The remainder of the reduction in Pang jobs was attributed to the transfer of the educational council from Pang to Pond Inlet.

That was done, said Okalik, to compensate for 20 local wildlife officers that, under the revised plan, were to be located in Pond Inlet.

"They have to be stationed in their communities to make it work," said Okalik.

The big winner in the revised decentralization plan was Nunavut's capital. But Okalik said the increase in jobs slated for Iqaluit, from 432.5 to 591, is mainly the result of jobs not accounted for in the revision of decentralization.

Okalik said 65 corrections and 31 computer jobs were not included in the tally. But after adding the nine hospital administration positions Iqaluit still gained 54.5 jobs last week.

Part of the problem of sharing out the jobs may be that the government does not have a handle on how far along it is in the hiring process.

Press secretary Annette Bourgeois said on Thursday that it would take a week to determine how many people the government currently employs in each community.

The government has given itself three years to fill all of the positions.