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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Once a star in Yellowknife's winter tourism market, Aurora World Corporation failed in 2007, but Daryl Dolynny, a candidate in the October territorial election, lists it among his successes as a pharmacist and businessman.

"Successfully rescued the world's largest JapaneseAurora-viewing tourism business from bankruptcy to a profit-maker with 6,000 annual clients, a seasonal staff of 20, and a Tokyo office - in less than 3 years," is how Dolynny refers to it on the social media site LinkedIn.

The Range Lake candidate and three partners - Alex Arychuk, Grant Beck, and the NWT Metis Development Corporation - are named in a statement of claim for $100,000 filed in territorial Supreme Court by the NWT Business Development and Investment Corporation, an agency belonging to the territorial government.

The four partners are also named in statement of claim for $150,000 filed by the Canadian Western Bank, which provided overdraft protection to Aurora.

In a joint statement of defence filed with the court, Dolynny and his partners said they were "actively pursued to secure their business expertise and stewardship when Aurora World Corp. encountered financial difficulty in 2004."

When Dolynny became involved with Aurora World, the company owed the Business Development and Investment Corporation $1.8 million - a debt run up by its predecessor Raven Tours Ltd. As part of the restructuring, the government agreed to forgive $800,000 and the partners signed a guarantee for $100,000.

The partners made a limited, five-year guarantee of $100,000 - "induced by verbal assurances from BDIC" that the guarantee was "merely a formality and would not be aggressively pursued," according to the statement of defence.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Dolynny says he served as president and CEO of Aurora from 2003 to 2006. Corporate registry documents show that Dolynny, Arychuk and Beck remained as corporate directors until 2008.

After Yellowknifer made a request for comment on the apparent discrepancy between the company's failure and his claim to have turned it around, Dolynny sent a e-mail containing the same prepared statement offered on a Facebook site dedicated to the upcoming election.

Dolynny, who hopes to succeed long-time MLA Sandy Lee in Range Lake, stated he held eight per cent of Aurora World when it failed.

"Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, Aurora World was not successful as a business. This resulted in significant losses for all involved. While the company is in a legal dispute with the GNWT, I hope that a resolution can be found that is satisfactory to all.

"I was actively involved in the operations of Aurora World in its very early days and had the satisfaction of turning it around, however I have no information on the current situation, as I am not an officer of the company."

On the Facebook page, Dolynny also attacked a story that brought the lawsuit to light.

"Although there maybe some good journalists out there, journalism as we know it today is more often now a compilation of "cut and paste," half truths and questionable ethics, it is apparent for some to take their liberty a bit too far in violation of what is considered the canons of journalism," he wrote.

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