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NUNAVUT
The company awarded a $25-million medevac services contract for the Kitikmeot was not required to have a valid licence, operating certificate, an office, hangar or staff based in Cambridge Bay, recently filed court documents reveal.

The territorial government awarded the Kitikmeot air medevac services contract to Aqsaqniq Aviation in August 2011. However, Adlair Aviation Ltd, former contract holder and one of six unsuccessful bidders, has challenged that decision in court, seeking $31.5 million, which includes damages, and the termination of Aqsaqniq's contract.

In its statement of claim, Adlair alleges in court documents, caused "critical delays in (Aqsaqniq's) air ambulance service leading to delays in medical treatment and the death of patients."

When questioned about that statement by News/North, Ed Brogden, Adlair's lawyer, cited the case of Betty Atighioyak, who died in December 2011 after it took close to 12 hours to get her to Edmonton from her home in Cambridge Bay.

Brogden said Aqsaqniq has no employees, equipment or staff in Cambridge Bay. He later acknowledged that Air Tindi, Aqsaqniq' partner, has had a temporary hangar and a Learjet stationed in Cambridge Bay since March 2012. He added that Aqsaqniq leases a King Air plane from Adlair for use on the shorter runways in Gjoa Haven and Taloyoak.

The Nunavummi Nangminiqaqtunik Ikajuuti (NNI) contracting appeals board has already dismissed Cambridge Bay-based Adlair Aviation Ltd.,'s initial appeal of the contract. Adlair filed that appeal in August 2011 after the Government of Nunavut awarded the air ambulance contract, which Adlair had held for some 20 years, to Taloyoak-based Aqsaqniq - a partnership between Aqsaqniq Ltd. and Yellowknife-based Discovery Air subsidiary Air Tindi. The NNI appeal board dismissed that appeal in October 2011.

The contract, valued at $5 million annually over five years, became effective Dec. 1, 2011.

In its statement of defence, the GN confirms it was not necessary for bidders to have an office, hangar and staff in Cambridge Bay at the time the competition closed. Possession of a Transport Canada aviation licence or operating certificate was also not mandatory, it further states.

In relation to the ownership of Aqsaqniq, the GN's statement of defence states the company is a joint-venture based in Taloyoak, with Aqsaqniq controlling 51 per cent and with Air Tindi as the minority partner.

"What's really fundamentally wrong is a southern Ontario company simply comes in and sets up a paper-local company that has no function whatsoever and becomes part of Nunavut," Brogden, a Mississauga-based lawyer, said of Discovery Air. "The very fundamental concept of Nunavut, the reason Nunavut exists, is being defeated. None of their money stays in the North. It all goes out of the area."

Both Air Tindi and its parent, Discovery Air, are headquartered in Yellowknife.

"One of the big things we're after is a declaration this is not a proper use of the NNI procedures," Brogden said. "I understand NNI is already being re-evaluated as to how it does its business because, surely, to allow a paper company to function is not the idea of NNI. Aqsaqniq has no operations here ... Discovery is clearly the operative company and it's in Toronto. If it's going to be a Northern company, you be a Northern company. We're after that far more than money. Money is the secondary issue."

The matter will likely go to trial with a civil jury in Cambridge Bay about a year from now, he added.

The territorial government retained the services of the law firm Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, based in Ottawa, in this case, according to the statement of defence.

A Department of Health and Social Services spokesperson said the department cannot comment as the case is before the courts.

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