Jennifer McPhee
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (Jan 28/02) - The territorial government changed its mind last week. Its employees can now apply for five paid days off to volunteer at the 2002 Arctic Winter Games.

The government originally planned to pay for only half its employees' volunteer time. The other half would have been deducted from annual leave time.

But the original press release did not clearly spell this out.

It said time off would be "subject to certain requirements."

Janet Foo, director of policy and planning for the Department of Human Resources, said the government didn't want to have to explain other requirements, such as "filling out a form."

"The intent of the press release was to tell the public that the government was supporting the games," she added.

Employees did receive an internal letter with the details.

Some employees were not impressed with the policy, and the Arctic Winter Games Host Society complained. The society pointed out many employees don't want to deplete their annual leave time or have no annual leave time left because they wanted to volunteer for the games.

As a result, all employees not essential to keeping government running will get up to five paid days off to volunteer.