Stephanie McDonald
Northern News Services
Published Monday, January 28, 2008

IQALUIT - The Government of Nunavut doesn't want to be dragged into the lawsuit filed by Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated (NTI) against the federal government, and now must wait to see if a judge agrees.

In December 2006, NTI filed the suit, accusing the federal government of too many delays in implementing the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement (NLCA). This past December the federal government filed a motion with the Nunavut Court of Justice, asking that the territorial government be added to the case as a co-defendant.

Lawyers for Canada, the GN and NTI presented submissions to Justice Earl Johnson in an almost four-hour sitting on Jan. 25.

"We do not want to be defendants," Premier Paul Okalik said at a press conference held in the legislative assembly last Wednesday. "We acknowledge we have to do more ... we would appreciate some federal help."

NTI places sole responsibility on the federal government to implement the agreement, according to NTI president Paul Kaludjak.

NTI's primary grievance against the federal government is that it hasn't done enough to promote Inuit employment in the workforce. Only 27 to 28 per cent of Inuit make up the workforce in federal agencies in the territory, Kaludjak said. The GN has approximately 50 per cent Inuit employment, he said.

"I think the Nunavut government has been quite aggressive in trying to recruit Inuit employment levels, a lot better than the federal side," Kaludjak said.

There were actually three signatories to the NLCA: the federal government, the GNWT and the Inuit, according to counsel Michele Annich, representing the Attorney General of Canada. As successor to the GNWT, the GN takes over the responsibilities of the GNWT, Annich argued in court on Friday.

The NLCA often refers to only "government" in its provisions and makes no distinction between the territorial and federal governments, Annich argued.

"We say the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement imposes shared responsibilities, shared obligations," she said.

If, at the end of the lawsuit, provisions and damages are ordered against the federal government, the Government of Nunavut will also be affected. Therefore, Annich said, the GN should be listed as a co-defendant as they share the obligations of implementation.

NTI lawyer Dugald Brown argued that because the agreement was ratified by federal parliament, it is the federal government's responsibility to implement it.

"The court is just not in the business of telling plaintiffs what claims they have to make and against who," Brown said. If NTI had wanted to name the GN as a co-defendant they would have done it from the start, he contended.

Johnson told the court that he would need some time to review the documents that had been supplied him before making a decision. No court date was set for the decision.