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Rankin Mayor Lorne Kusugak and hamlet senior administrative officer Ron Roach recently met with Nunavut Premier Paul Okalik in Iqaluit to discuss the proposed move of the PPD to Baker Lake.
Kusugak said the meeting was a productive one and, as he understands it, Rankin will retain a significant number of the PPD positions.
"We did discuss (job) numbers, but I don't want to speak in public about those discussions," said Kusugak.
"I am comfortable in saying not all the jobs that are going to be created or moved to Baker Lake are going to come from Rankin Inlet. We agreed not all 13 jobs will move from Rankin."
Kusugak said he and the premier want to work towards building a productive relationship between the hamlet and government of Nunavut.
But, he adds, the hamlet's original intent of keeping the PPD in Rankin Inlet has not changed.
"We still want the whole department and its employees to stay in Rankin and that's the bottom line. But if we can't accomplish that, we want to keep as many jobs as we can."
Hamlet council would not discuss the matter openly during its regular meeting earlier this month, opting, instead, to go in-camera.
Kusugak said, "it's time for cooler heads to prevail" when it comes to the media.
"There's no doubt the coverage we've received in the media helped bring us to where we are today. But, to talk numbers and other matters right now, would be counter productive.
Eventually, we will return to the media because people have the right to know what's going on."
The NG will be conducting an impact study on the PPD's move to Baker Lake during the next two months.
The hamlet of Rankin Inlet is also advertising for a study of its own.
"The premier told me our hamlet will have input into the terms of reference, and our community will be consulted throughout the entire process. We're writing to ascertain exactly what input we would have into those terms before we pull our study. If we were to pull our study, and then discover we didn't have any say into those terms of reference, we wouldn't have accomplished what we set out to do."
