Go back
Go home

  Features




NNSL Photo/Graphic





NNSL Logo .
Home Page bigger textsmall text Text size Email this articleE-mail this story  Discuss this articleOrder a classified ad
Damning documents point to possible conflict for Simailak

Karen Mackenzie
Northern News Services
Published Monday, June 9, 2008

NUNAVUT - Despite his repeated assurances to the contrary, Baker Lake MLA David Simailak kept in contact with his business interests while in office, according to damning documents released in the legislative assembly last week.

The latest package contains a number of e-mails between Simailak and Warwick Wilkinson, general manager of Piruqsaijit, a Rankin Inlet-based real estate company of which Simailak is a part owner.

From February 2005 to March 2007, Wilkinson provided Simailak with regular updates on issues ranging from the purchase of a lease to a pest infestation to the scheduling of a meeting with the housing minister.

The package also contains an e-mail from Simailak to then-deputy minister of Economic Development Alex Campbell on April 2, instructing him to contact John Todd "regarding the prospect of him doing some contract work for the department."

Todd, a former Northwest Territories finance minister, was CEO of the Evaz Group of Companies and helped co-found IIagiiktuk Ltd., of which Simailak is part owner.

In an e-mail to Todd dated April 3, 2007, Simailak also expressed his frustration over a business deal which went to a competing firm in his riding.

"Sakku Catering is there now and people seem HAPPY. That is not correct. All it means is more money for Nuna M&T and Charlie (Pioneer Services) in MY region...

"...My boys are reincorporating DC Enterprises and I am going to have them go after everything..." he wrote.

The standing committee of government operations and accountability subpoenaed letters, e-mails and faxes from Simailak and his former executive assistant Chris Lalande last year as part of its review of the Nunavut Business Credit Corporation (NBCC).

It tabled the remainder of the documents last week. "I knew there was something wrong even before these documents were released," said Rankin Inlet North MLA Tagak Curley, a member of the standing committee.

Simailak was elected as MLA in 2004, and was appointed minister of Economic Development shortly afterward.

He later served as finance minister.

Under Nunavut's Integrity Act, MLAs must place all business interests into a blind trust when they take office, so they will have no knowledge of their companies' activities.

Standing committee chair Hunter Tootoo said the committee will request a formal review of the correspondence by Nunavut's interim integrity commissioner.

"We prepared an affidavit for me to sign off on and send down to the integrity commissioner to review the e-mails to see if (Simailak) had violated the act. That's not our job or our role to do," Tootoo said.

"The committee felt it seemed like the minister was involved in...day to day operations of companies in which he had an interest while he was minister," he explained.

Simailak resigned as finance minister in December 2007, shortly after it became public that he had not disclosed his interests in one company on his annual disclosure statements, as required by all MLAs.

Then-integrity commissioner Robert Stanbury found Simailak had failed four times to disclose the name of Kangiqliniq Developments Ltd., a subsidiary of Ilagiiktut Ltd. Both received $1 million loans from the mismanaged NBCC.

Simailak told Stanbury he had inadvertently listed the name of a Rankin Inlet building owned by the company in its place.

In a statement to the legislative assembly last November, he said he had no knowledge of the loans because his businesses had been placed in a blind trust under the direction of a trustee.

Last week, Simailak declined to comment on why he allowed the correspondence to continue. "All I'm going to say is that the integrity commissioner has been asked to do a review and we'll let the process takes its due course," he said.

He added that he plans to "continue to serve the constituents of Baker Lake."

When asked whether he planned to run in the next election, he laughed and declined to answer.