Nunavut finance minister under fire over job transfers

MLAs and the government employees union in Nunavut accused the territory's finance minister of misleading the legislative assembly over his handling of job transfers to his department.

Iqaluit Centre MLA Hunter Tootoo tabled a letter Wednesday from the Nunavut Employees Union, saying the union and staff should have been informed and consulted about a decision to move 24 finance positions from thehealth and executive and intergovernmental affairs departments to the finance department.

Tootoo also tabled a petition from 17 health employees who said Finance Minister David Simailak misinformed the legislature when he announced in March that the affected employees had been consulted and agreed to the transfers.

However, the employees said they were told they had no choice in the matter and the union said the consultations did not happen.

Reading from briefing notes in his binder, Simailak responded Wednesday by saying the consultations did happen.

"There has been a meeting and consultation with the Nunavut Employees Union, the government of Nunavut and the affected staff members, although this meeting did not happen before the announcement and nor did it have to," he told the legislative assembly.

The job transfers came in response to a highly critical 2006 report from federal Auditor General Sheila Fraser that found Nunavut failed to put basic financial controls in place within government.

Too many finance employees were working alone without proper training and supervision, the report said, leaving the government vulnerable to fraud, bad decisions and mistakes.

Fraser urged cabinet to rethink its decision to decentralize finance jobs to Rankin Inlet andCambridge Bay from Iqaluit. But Tootoo said simply shuffling jobs from one department to another in those communities does not address Fraser's concerns.

"To me, it almost seems like it's a smoke-and-mirror type ploy to make it look like they're reacting and doing something," Tootoo said. "I think that my interpretation of that recommendation in her report was dealing with the decentralized financial functions throughout the territory. I don't think it was targeted with re-centralizing jobs that are already here."

Simailak said staff will not have to relocate to other communities as a result of the transfers and if they are not happy with the move, they are free to apply to other jobs in government.