August 4, 2000
SEAN McKIBBON
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT — More jobs are coming soon to Kugluktuk, says Nunavut premier Paul Okalik.
"The minister of health will be going there to announce jobs at the end of the month for 10 more positions, so that will bring it up to the promised 29 positions that were to be put in place for the community," Okalik said this week.
Okalik’s government has come under fire from residents of Kugluktuk, who have been complaining that a Nunavut government building leased from the Nunavut Construction Corporation was sitting mostly empty and that too few jobs have been decentralized to Kugluktuk.
"The building’s been ready and it’s been occupied for last year, but the numbers haven’t been there, so they are expecting more positions. That’s normal," Okalik said in response to the complaints.
He said the government is advertising for people to fill two more Department of Community Government jobs, in addition to six other employees of that department who, aside from a single Public Works employee, are the only people working in the Kugluktuk headquarters building right now.
Languages director for CLEY
Okalik says more progress on the job front will come after his government hires a director of languages for the Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth.
"Once we get the director in place, he or she will do the hiring for the respective department," Okalik said.
Okalik said the Nunavut government had a director of languages, but she didn’t want to move to Kugluktuk.
He said that other delays in moving positions to the community occurred because the government was trying to decide which positions in the health department should be moved to Kugluktuk.
Other delays in decentralization have occurred because infrastructure wasn’t ready by April 1, 1999, said Okalik.
"The offices in the communities weren’t ready on April one. The housing wasn’t complete in some places. Even with the completed buildings, there’s no phones or computers, furniture, so we’re trying to meet those expectations, but the people need a place to work and that’s going to be done for Pond Inlet, Pang and Dorset," Okalik said.
He said he expects that staffing in those communities would be finished by September.
Dorset needs equipment
He said government offices in Cape Dorset still need telephone connections and furniture.
"We wanted to make sure everything was operational, but the old Footprints was not that complete, if you recall. There were local wildlife officers to be transferred to one community. But you need those officers on the ground in each of those communities if you are going to enforce wildlife laws, you can’t have them bunched up in one community," Okalik said.
Nunavut’s regional health and education offices — the former regional boards — won’t decentralize until next year for exactly the same reason.
Okalik said the two departments have to decide which functions make the most sense to decentralize, and where those decentralized jobs should be located.
But while Okalik said the hiring process will take time and cannot happen over night, others say the Nunavut government needs to change the way it pays its employees.
VTAs a problem?
Doug Workman, the president of the Nunavut Employees Union, says cut-backs made to employee benefits, such as vacation travel allowances, are impeding the hiring process.
"There’s a cost of living problem," said Workman. He said workers ask up front about wages and benefits and are finding it simply isn’t worth their while to work in Nunavut.
Workman said if the government wants to attract qualified workers, they’ll have to pay more.
But Okalik bristles at the suggestion that the government is having trouble staffing its positions because it has problems attracting southern workers or people from Iqaluit.
"A lot of them have some expertise already," said Okalik. "They’re pretty bright people in those communities. I’m from Pangnirtung. I’m a lawyer. You don’t have to be from Iqaluit to be qualified to come up with the educational requirements."
He brushed aside concerns about how many workers were deciding to refuse decentralized jobs.
Hire from communities?
Last week, an official with Human Resource Minister Kelvin Ng’s office said the government had only heard back from two employees who had decided to accept decentralize jobs in Baffin communities outside Iqaluit.
"We had residents from Pond Inlet coming here to learn about Public Works. I look forward to seeing more of those, where people decide not to relocate, and they find alternate positions within our government and we’ll staff up with local residents," Okalik said.
While he said the issue of VTAs is now being discussed within collective agreement talks with the NEU, he also said that for workers who come from communities in Nunavut, subsidized plane tickets are not as much of an issue.
"Some of them don’t care if there’s a VTA because they’re at home and they’re getting a job," Okalik said.
Okalik also pointed to some successes in the decentralization of Nunavut government jobs.
"Kugluktuk was ready. Arviat has been staffed up. Gjoa Haven has been staffed up. So where the infrastructure was ready we’ve been able to staff those positions quite well. We haven’t had much problem, where you look at Gjoa Haven where it’s the legal services board [and] we need lawyers — those have been filled," Okalik said.