Adlair’s legal battle against GN continues in Nunavut court

René Laserich, operations manager at Adlair Aviation Ltd., the Cambridge Bay airline his famous bush pilot father, Willy Laserich started, stands in October 2012 in front of one of the company’s two hangars at the Cambridge Bay airport. (FILE PHOTO)

A Learjet 35A with an Aqsaqniq Airways logo sits outside a hangar in Yellowknife. According to the original version of its Kitikmeot medevac contract with the Government of Nunavut, a Learjet was supposed to be based in Cambridge Bay. And Air Tindi, the operating partner in the contract, promised in 2011 to locate a Learjet in Cambridge Bay. But the partner companies never located the aircraft permanently in Cambridge Bay. (SUBMITTED PHOTO)

Adlair Aviation Ltd.’s ongoing multi-million dollar lawsuit against the Government of Nunavut for its medevac contract award to Aqsaqniq Airways Ltd. — now in litigation for over three years — will continue for at least another few months pending an indefinite adjournment.

Justice Robert Kilpatrick of the Nunavut Court of Justice granted a “sine die” adjournment Jan. 11 to GN attorneys on their motion for a summary judgment on the case.

“Sine die” is a legal term for an adjournment without the setting of a date to reconvene.

The summary judgment motion, which the GN presented to the court late last year, is meant to dismiss Adlair’s lawsuit on technicalities before it reaches trial.

The GN wants to use the adjournment period to strike from the record sections of Adlair’s submission in response to the summary judgment motion.

“We’re asking today that the motion for summary judgment be adjourned ‘sine die’ and that we set a special chambers date for the motion to strike. Following that, we’ll have a better idea when the motion for summary judgment can be argued,” Borden Ladner Gervais LLP lawyer Qajaq Robinson said on behalf of the government.

A special chambers meeting, not open to the public, has been set for April 13 to determine the merit of the affidavit.

In its original lawsuit, filed in 2012, Cambridge Bay-based Adlair claimed $31.5 million in punitive damages against the GN, alleging the government improperly took the Kitikmeot medevac contract from Adlair and awarded it to Aqsaqniq.

In its statement of claim, Adlair alleged that Aqsaqniq is a middleman that gave the day-to-day operations of the medevac service to non-Nunavut companies.

Air Tindi, a subsidiary of Discovery Air, is Aqsaqniq’s minority partner and operates medevac flights for Aqsaqniq under the contract.

In Air Tindi’s 2011 news release announcing the contract award to their company, the company promised to locate a Learjet air ambulance in Cambridge Bay.

“Eventually Aqsaqniq Airways will have a dedicated, medevac purpose-built Learjet 35A based in Cambridge Bay that is equipped to land on and take off from the gravel runways of the Kitikmeot communities,” the Air Tindi press release said.

But a Learjet was never located permanently in Cambridge Bay.

“The Inuit content claimed by Aqsaqniq Aviation (2004) Inc. [sic] had no office, hangar, staff, equipment, aircraft or infrastructure in place at Cambridge Bay when the contract was awarded, nor did Aqsaqniq Aviation (2004) Inc. own any aircraft, supplies, equipment, nor employ any mechanics, medics, nurses or other related staff,” Adlair’s lawsuit states.

In its original statement of defense in 2013, the GN claimed it wasn’t necessary for firms bidding on the contract to have any of the on-site infrastructure that Adlair listed.

Adlair also states that delays caused by the transition of medevac services to Aqsaqniq and Air Tindi contributed to the deaths of patients.

Shortly after the transfer of the medevac contract to Aqsaqniq in 2011, Betty Atighioyak, 32, died from stroke complications after waiting many hours for a medevac to the south.

In its bid for the medevac contract, Aqsaqniq said they were a “majority Inuit-owned partnership,”

But Adlair alleges that Aqsaqniq exploited the GN’s Nunavummi Nangminiqaqtunik Ikajuuti policy, or NNI, which is meant to favour Inuit companies in bids for government contracts — in compliance with Article 24 of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement.

Aqsaqniq Airways Ltd. is listed on Industry Canada’s website as having a registered office at the Lawson Lundell LLP law firm in Yellowknife.

The listed directors are: Kristine Lyall of Taloyoak, James Eetoolook of Taloyoak, Peter Arychuk of Yellowknife and Dennis Lyall of Taloyoak.

Eetoolook is a vice president of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. Arychuk is a co-founder of Air Tindi in Yellowknife, now owned by Discovery Air, and Dennis Lyall is listed on NTI’s Inuit firms registry as Aqsaqniq’s contact in Taloyoak.

The Nunavut Court of Justice will now have to address Adlair’s affidavit before deciding whether to grant the GN’s motion for summary judgment.

If the judge decides against that motion, the case will be forced to go to trial.