Iqaluit (Mar 06/06) - The government of Nunavut is looking for 770 people to fill jobs with the territory.

Louis Tapardjuk, minister responsible for Human Resources, brought the news that certain departments are running with only about 70 per cent of the staff required.

Louis Tapardjuk: Lack of housing makes it hard to hire people.

MLAs used the Human Resources committee review the minister tabled in the legislative assembly last week to grill him and his deputy, Annie Okpik, on a wide-range of staffing issues.

"I could tell you, especially in Iqaluit, we are experiencing quite a few problems due to lack of housing. That's one of the major causes of not filling up positions," said Tapardjuk.

That is a tune that Doug Workman - president of the Nunavut Employees Union - can sing along to.

"The quality of housing and cost of actually living in Nunavut are hurting retention and recruitment," said Workman after he heard about the report.

"For retention, they have to deal with the cost of housing for sure. They have to do something, it is a huge issue."

Cambridge Bay MLA Keith Peterson broached the subject of nepotism during the sitting. With a population of 30,000, almost every Nunavummiut has a family member working for the government.

"They see a lot of people getting hired that they don't think are qualified or they think they're friends or relatives of the people hiring," said Peterson.

Tapardjuk didn't deny that nepotism exists, but he said he will work against it.

"Yes, we run into casual employees and when we hear about these kinds of problems about nepotism occurring, we can deal with them at our office," said Tapardjuk.

Peterson followed his nepotism question by asking about appeal rights for casual employees. Tapardjuk confirmed that casual employees cannot appeal staffing decisions.

Iqaluit MLA Hunter Tootoo also had questions for Tapardjuk, including about unsolicited references.

"Everyone knows this is such a small territory. Everybody knows somebody. Some people have chips on their shoulders against other people for whatever reason.

"All it has to take is, they find out someone is applying and they fire off an e-mail saying you shouldn't hire this person for whatever reason," he said in the legislative assembly.

"To me, that's not right. If an individual doesn't make the interview because of that, there's something wrong. I know you know that this has happened."

Tapardjuk deferred that question to his deputy minister.

"We do not accept unsolicited references," Okpik said. "If there is a specific instance then I would like to be informed of that specific instance so we could deal with this."

As of Sept. 30, 2005, there were 517 casual employees working for the government of Nunavut.