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September 21, 2001
Meeka fights for job behind closed doors
ALISON BLACKDUCK
Nunatsiaq News
Meeka
Kilabuk and her lawyer Russel Zinn face QIA’s board of directors.
(PHOTO BY ALISON BLACKDUCK)
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IQALUIT — Citing family tragedy, Meeka Kilabuk, the suspended
president of the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, requested that Wednesday’s
much-anticipated meeting with QIA’s board of directors be
held behind closed doors.
As of Nunatsiaq News press-time this Wednesday, that meeting
had yet to be opened to the public.
Flanked by her lawyer Russel Zinn, Kilabuk said: “My niece
who just passed away is having a funeral service. I don’t
want my older sister who just lost a daughter to hear what happened
to me.”
Kilabuk wanted the board members to re-schedule the meeting,
which was held in the Anglican parish hall, but meeting chair
George Eckalook, who is also QIA’s acting vice-president,
refused her request.
“We have other issues to discuss and other meetings this
week,” he told Kilabuk. “You had a chance to speak with
us, but now we’re behind. You had lots of time before this
meeting started.”
However, board members, who travelled to Iqaluit especially for
Wednesday’s meeting, agreed that Kilabuk — but not her
lawyer — could speak with them privately for an hour.
After that, Eckalook said the public had a right to attend the
rest of the meeting.
QIA employees and beneficiaries in attendance were upset with
the board’s decision.
Shaking their heads as they left the parish hall, they grumbled
that the private meeting “wasn’t right.”
QIA’s board of directors requested Kilabuk’s resignation
this summer, just weeks after suspending her.
After Kilabuk refused to resign, the board asked QIA employees
to compile a list of reasons why Kilabuk should step down.
For her part, Kilabuk said in a press release issued from her
lawyer’s office last week that the board has provided incorrect
information to the public.
She said that her initial departure from regular duties, a leave-of-absence
that began June 18, came about because she asked for it and not
because the board imposed it.
QIA’s board later extended that period of leave until July
18 in an emergency executive teleconference, telling Kilabuk that
the extension was intended to give her more time to recover from
exhaustion.
“Had I suspected what some were doing behind my back I would
have refused this extended leave,” Kilabuk said in the press
release.
On July 5, when QIA’s board met to suspend her from her
job and ask for her resignation, she was given no notice of the
meeting, Kilabuk said.
“I was not going to resign when meetings were held behind
my back and without my knowledge,” she said.
Kilabuk also said that she didn’t get a copy of the 22 reasons
for her suspension until Aug. 17.
About two weeks ago, QIA’s acting executive director, John
MacDougall, said the board would probably release that list to
the public during Wednesday’s meeting.
But by Nunatsiaq News press time Wednesday, that list was unavailable,
as were the results of the closed-door meeting.
QIA is holding their AGM Sept. 24 at Iqaluit’s parish hall.
With files from Jim Bell.
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