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Nunavut's DIAND office faces "desperate" staff problems

"I think it's an absolute disgrace the way this office has been neglected by Ottawa"

JIM BELL

Low Inuit employment is just one of many severe staffing headaches that DIAND's Nunavut regional office could face over the next five years unless it gets more help, an internal DIAND document says.

The document, dated Feb. 28, 2005, sets out a human resource plan for DIAND's Nunavut regional office, or NRO, for 2005-06. It warns that DIAND needs more people working for them in Nunavut to do the growing number of tasks that Ottawa is dumping in their laps.

The document was leaked anonymously to an NTI official, who then sent it to NTI's Iqaluit office. After a staff meeting last week, NTI's Iqaluit officials decided to publicize it by giving it to Nunatsiaq News.

Hagar Idlout-Sudlovenick, who this week is filling in as acting regional director at the NRO, said the human resources plan is "internal information," not intended for public consumption.

But she did say the document was created to help DIAND's Nunavut office prepare for the federal Public Service Modernization Act, and to plan for the future.

"We have to identify the issues; we have to identify the needs," Idlout-Sudlovenick said.

One of those planning tasks is to figure out a way of raising their proportion of Inuit employees from where it stands now, 23 per cent, to something higher, to better comply with Article 23 of the Nunavut land claims agreement.

The human resources plan says they'll aim for a 38 per cent Inuit staffing level by the end of 2005-06, through the targeting of administrative support and other jobs. But because of fierce competition, high turnover and other factors, DIAND's Nunavut officials don't know if they'll meet even that modest 38 per cent target.

"The NRO will be in desperate need to hire new staff to meet the challenges over the next five years, and it will take significant resources to help develop Inuit candidates to fill these positions," the document says.

John Bainbridge, a senior policy advisor at Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., said that, in NTI's view, the document shows that in managing its Nunavut office, DIAND officials in Ottawa have ignored the legal requirement to comply with Article 23 of the Nunavut land claims agreement.

He points out that at least three other federal departments have better Inuit hiring records: Human Resources Development, 46 per cent; Parks Canada, 42 per cent; and Fisheries and Oceans, 40 per cent.

That puts them in the same league as the Government of Nunavut, which reported that for 2005, 46 per cent of its employees are Inuit.

Idlout-Sudlovenick, however, said her office is well aware of that issue, and that the document shows that they are developing plans to deal with it.

"This is part of the challenge of working in the northern environment. You still have to do the planning process," she said.

NTI and the GN, are locked in a bitter dispute with DIAND over a new 10-year implementation contract for the Nunavut land claims agreement. On-again, off-again talks between the two sides broke down for good in the fall of 2004 - because they can't agree on how best to carry out Article 23.

NTI wants Ottawa to spend $10 to $20 million a year over 10 years on implementing Article 23, through a massive Inuit training program. But Ottawa's negotiators are refusing to contemplate spending that kind of money.

The human resource plan also suggests that DIAND's Nunavut office doesn't have enough people to handle its growing work load. That work load has expanded because of various new jobs that have been added recently to the NRO's to-do list:

• managing Nunavut's five-year, $30 million northern economic development fund;
• managing two different infrastructure funds;
• acting as Ottawa's de facto environmental assessment agency in Nunavut, which means dealing with at least four proposed projects right now;
• preparing for devolution negotiations, expected to start in earnest this fall;
• taking part in Northern Strategy consultations.

"The [economic development] division's current level of resources is inadequate to appropriately administer the department's programs - within an acceptable level of risk," the document warns.

This means DIAND's Nunavut office "is not receptive" to clients, and cannot ensure accountability for the money it gives out by following up with clients.

"I think it's an absolute disgrace the way this office has been neglected by Ottawa," Bainbridge said.

The document proposes various ways of fixing their staffing problems, but also points out the hurdles that stand in their way, which include:

• Iqaluit's poor social environment: limited medical care, limited daycare, high levels of drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, disease, and suicide, which all play a "key factor" in staff turnover;
• The rigid security within the Iqaluit federal government building where most NRO staff work, which "creates the public perception that DIAND is removed from the community and inaccessible;
• Fierce competition among various agencies for Inuit staff: "Aboriginal persons ready to work... can basically set the tone for their own employment," the document says.
  

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