Kent Driscoll
Northern News Services
Monday, April 16, 2007

PANGNIRTUNG - When former RCMP Special Constable Joanasie Dialla died in 1984, he left behind 10 children. He should have also left behind a $30,000 RCMP pension.

But a language-based error cost Dialla his pension. Now Joanasie's son Andrew is trying to get that money back, with interest.

Joanasie Dialla retired from the RCMP in 1973, after 24 years of service. As a special constable, he helped regular officers get from Pangnirtung to Iqaluit and Qikiqtarjuaq by dog team and boat.

"He never lost an officer in his care," said Andrew Dialla.

Upon retirement, Joanasie Dialla received a letter from the RCMP with a form he had to fill out to receive his pension.

Dialla spoke English well enough to communicate with RCMP officers, but he couldn't read it.

"In those years, when you didn't read English, and it is not a cheque, you set it aside. He was getting all sorts of letters from the RCMP, newsletters," said Andrew Dialla.

Without that pension, the Dialla family suffered. Joanasie Dialla retired from the RCMP at 60 years of age, but worked until he died to keep food on the family table. A job for Joanasie - teaching traditional skills at the school - kept them partly fed. Welfare provided the rest.

"I did not realize at that time how old my Dad was when he started teaching but he must have been at least 61 or 62," said Andrew Dialla.

"My mom used to envy people buying carts full of social assistance food, and then had to find out what it was like to be on welfare."

Joanasie Dialla died in 1984 of a heart attack.

He had been sick for some time, and his wife had been fighting a failing two-year battle with lung cancer.

Dialla kept his own sickness secret, and died two weeks to the day after his wife died. The elder Dialla had kept the correspondence from the RCMP, setting it aside, and when Joanasie Dialla died, his son Andrew and his family found it.

They contacted the RCMP about the pension, and found out that since Dialla was dead, they would only pay 10 per cent of the total to the family.

"There are 10 siblings, we split that $3,000 up. That's what Dad left us," said Andrew Dialla.

As he got older, Andrew Dialla asked every new constable in Pangnirtung about the pension, but it wasn't easy to get an answer.

"I started trying to get info. I finally found a local corporal who was helpful, but it did take two or three corporals," said Dialla.

That corporal put Dialla on the trail of his father's RCMP service record.

Those records are sealed for 20 years following the death of an officer, and once Dialla retrieved them in 2005, they didn't have any information about the pension either.

"I could have got them in 2004, but that was a horrible year for me," he said. "My 21-year-old daughter died that year. In 2005 I made a formal request, and they sent me a two-inch file. Nothing has to do with the pension."

Dialla and his brothers and sisters don't agree on how to deal with the pension issue. He is ready to fight; they would rather let the past stay in the past.

"My whole family says 'It's the RCMP, we can't fight the RCMP.' I don't have that attitude, I know we can beat them," said Dialla.

RCMP pensions have been in the media spotlight recently, with Justice Minister Stockwell Day calling for an investigation into the alleged mismanagement of the funds.

That has led Dialla to pick up the fight for his Dad's $30,000, plus the interest it would have generated since 1973.

"I always thought it was a problem with the RCMP, but some other people have been running the RCMP pensions. Maybe it was their fault," said Dialla.

RCMP officials in Ottawa did not provide a spokesperson to Nunavut News/North by deadline.

"It is a very specific question, and we need to get you the right person," said Sgt. Sylvie Tremblay.