NTCL won’t pay for gas damage without seeing report

No one wants to step up and pay for the damage caused by the bad gasoline that’s been gunking up engines in Nunavut.

Kirk Vander Ploeg, marketing manager for Northern Transportation Company Ltd., the company that supplied the gas, said he wants to see a copy of the report by the Alberta Research Council that damned the gas before concluding that either NTCL or the Government of Nunavut is responsible for payments to hunters.

Vander Ploeg said the GN hasn’t responded to his requests to see the report.

“We have yet to see a copy of that report,” Vander Ploeg said. “We are still waiting for this report so we will have an opportunity to evaluate it from our perspective.”

Vander Ploeg said NTCL has cooperated with the GN ever since concerns about the gas were first raised and will continue to do so.

He said Premier Paul Okalik is “jumping the gun” by suggesting NTCL — and not the GN — may be liable for compensating vehicle owners whose machines have been damaged by bad gas.

Vander Ploeg said comments by Okalik in last week’s Nunatsiaq News didn’t “move the issue forward.”

Okalik said NTCL, which is owned by Norterra, a 50-50 partnership between the Inuit of Nunavut and the Inuvialuit of the western Arctic, supplied the inferior gasoline, so it could also be expected to help compensate those affected by bad gas supplies.

He also said the Inuit-owned NTCL may have to carry the cost of compensating those beneficiaries whose vehicles have been damaged.

“This hasn’t put a bad taste on anything. We were just disappointed,” Vander Ploeg said.

While Okalik alluded to the contract between the GN and NTCL, Vander Ploeg said the terms of this contract are supposed to remain private.

“Of course, he picked his words well,” Vander Ploeg said.