Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

NNSL (Aug 30/99) - A million-dollar deal that went sour earlier this year is likely going to get a whole lot worse before it gets any better.

Unfortunately, it's the children in the Baffin region who are probably going to lose the most in the end.

That's because of a lawsuit that the Baffin Divisional Board of Education has launched against the Kakivak Association for the loss of a potential partnership that would have seen the Inuit development corporation dump $1 million worth of funding into the schools around the region.

In a press release issued by the board earlier this year, they stated that the much-needed dollars would be used to hire two program support specialists, 17 elders and 10 classroom support assistants. It would also give already employed CSAs a salary increase.

Board officials had proceeded to begin hiring the new staff when the bottom fell out of the deal. Pat Angnakak, Kakivak's then chief executive officer, who had approached the board with the proposal and negotiated the deal on Kakivak's behalf, was terminated from her position. The education board was then notified that Kakivak wished to further review the potential partnership. Kakivak then announced that they had decided not to come through with money.

Lorne Levy, the assistant director and fund-raiser for the board, said they were quite concerned with Kakivak's change of heart and because they had already gone ahead and started to hire new staff, they had no choice but to follow the advice of their legal team and sue the association.

"We filed a statement of claim that said we feel this is what you are obligated to cover," said Levy.

"It came to a point where we had gone and done a certain amount of hiring. We feel that we can't just go back to where there was no partnership in place. We're too far along and we really have no choice but to recover those costs," said Levy.

Jerry Ell, Kakivak's acting president, disagreed and said the deal was not binding because it had not passed through the appropriate channels of approval at Kakivak or at its parent organization, the Qikiqtani Inuit Association. Further, Ell said that because it did not target Inuit specifically, the partnership would not have met their funders' criteria.

"They're grasping at straws given all of the shortfalls they have in terms of program dollars. They feel that by latching on to Kakivak, they'll be able to access additional dollars. That's probably what it boils down to," said Ell. "This lawsuit is more for saving face than anything else."

He also expressed concern that the cash-strapped board would use badly needed money to pursue a lawsuit when it could be used to educate children.

"Any legal proceedings are bound to be significant expenditures. It could cost up to $20,000 -- that's $20,000 less that they'll have to provide books and materials for students in the schools."

Levy reaffirmed that the board had no choice but to try and recover the money they had already put out and said they were honour bound to follow through on the offers of more staff and pay hikes they had promised to Baffin schools.

Kakivak was expected to file its statement of defence last week, giving both sides the go ahead to begin building their legal cases.