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May 12, 1995

Footprints in New Snow, the Nunavut Implementation Commission's first blueprint for Nunavut's government, was released in May of 1995. The report contained 104 recommendations about how Nunavut's future government should be set up, as well as detailed analysis and information on many crucial Nunavut issues.

Footprints in new snow: the NIC's first report

JIM BELL AND TODD PHILLIPS
Nunatsiaq News

IQALUIT — The Nunavut Implementation Commission has just handed Ottawa a set of detailed sketches for what is likely to be a lean, cost-efficient and decentralized Nunavut territorial government.

"The report advocates a simpler, more streamlined approach to the design of the Nunavut government than anticipated by earlier studies commissioned by the territorial and federal governments," Chief Commissioner John Amagoalik says in an attached letter of transmittal.
The NIC's first major report — an English-language copy of which has been obtained by Nunatsiaq News — contains 104 recommendations and 14 chapters of detailed discussion.

The title of the report, "Footprints in New Snow," echoes the much-quoted words of Amittuq MLA Titus Allooloo at the first Nunavut leaders' summit in Iqaluit in January 1992.

"Our future lying before us is like freshly fallen snow, and we had better be careful about how we walk on it. It will leave footprints for others to follow," said Allooloo had said in his opening remarks as chair of that landmark gathering.

In the report the commission deals with a wide range of subjects, including Nunavut's legislative assembly, the Nunavut government's administrative design, the recruitment and training of employees to work for the Nunavut territorial government, the awarding of contracts to build Nunavut's infrastructure, the socio-economic benefits of Nunavut, official languages, the process of selecting of Nunavut's capital, and many others.

Tacked on at the end are many pages of appendices, some of which summarize the results of a major study on the costs of creating Nunavut done for the commission by the Price Waterhouse consulting firm.

That study estimates that the one-time cost of creating infrastructure needed for Nunavut's new government is approximately $210 million — though the exact figure varies by about one or two per cent depending on where the capital is located.

That's lower than cost figures produced by the Coopers and Lybrand firm in two studies done in 1991 and 1992.

The extra cost of running the Nunavut government's headquarters each year is also a little lower than previously calculated, estimated by Price Waterhouse at about $77 million a year. That figure also varies slightly depending on where the capital is located.

Realistic expectations

In Chapter Three of "New Footprints in the Snow," the commission urges people not to expect too much from Nunavut, or too little.

"In the face of innumerable tasks, both grand and trivial, that will need to be done in the build-up to 1999, it will be easy to be pushed by events, rather than to guide them," the report says.

"This is most likely to happen if those involved in organizing Nunavut succumb to unrealistic expectations, be they unrealistically high or unrealistically low."

The report goes on to warn that "realistically, some aspects of the Nunavut government on April 1, 1999, will fall short of the plans."

But the commission also says that if planners are too timid, Nunavut won't differ much from the current government of the Northwest Territories.

Many challenges

In Chapter Three, the commission sets out a list of nine "challenges" that must be faced.

Some of those challenges include creating Nunavut on time, having a government administration that is as representative of its people as its legislature, running a cost-efficient government in a high-cost region, promoting Nunavut's cultural distinctiveness while building up social harmony, building Nunavut's economy, and getting reliable financial support from Ottawa.

The commission also stresses repeatedly that one goal of the Nunavut government must be to work towards the day when the proportion of Inuit working for the Nunavut government is same as the proportion of Inuit in the population — about 80 per cent.

"The success of the Nunavut will be measured to no small extent against the degree to which Nunavut residents make up the bureaucracy of the Nunavut government," the commission says.

Three capital choices

A big part of NIC'S first report deals with where to put Nunavut's capital.

The commision has narrowed the choice to three communities-Cambridge Bay, Rankin Inlet and Iqaluit — but insists that the federal Cabinet make the final choice.

Fewer employees needed

The commission also predicts that the Nunavut government will only need 600 new full-time employees, down dramatically from the 1,108 employees projected in the1991 Coopers and Lybrands study.

The employment projections in the report are also down sharply from the estimated 930 full-time jobs predicted in a 1992 Coopers and Lybrand study.

Ottawa still reading report

"Really we're just in the preliminary stages of analyzing the report," Ken Wyman, the director of the Nunavut secretariat in Ottawa said this week.

Wyman said he doubts Ottawa will wade into the public debate over the content of the NIC report. "That doesn't preclude other groups from making comments if they wish."

He said Ottawa wouldn't likely respond to each of the recommendations, but would look at the document as a whole.

Chapter 13 of the report sets out a schedule of meetings between NTI, the federal government and the GNWT leading to a submission to the federal Cabinet in September or October. They're suggesting that the federal Cabinet make its decisions known in November, 1995.

NIC staff say they are waiting for the report to be translated into French, Inuktitut and Inuiaqtun before they officially make it public.

Nunatsiaq News has ensured that all stories on the NIC report this week have been translated into Inuktitut. Please see next week's paper for more coverage.

The next NIC report is to be released in April, 1996.

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