Nunavut judge tells Adlair lawyer to return with cleaned up affidavits

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. Adlair’s lawsuit against the Government of Nunavut is still grinding its way through the Nunavut Court of Justice. (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)

Justice Paul Bychok struck from the record a pair of affidavits submitted by Adlair Aviation Ltd. in its ongoing court battle with the Government of Nunavut over the Kitikmeot medevac contract the GN awarded to Aqsaqniq Airways Ltd. in 2011.

Adlair submitted the affidavits in response to a motion for summary judgment, filed by GN lawyers last summer, to dismiss the $31.5 million dollar lawsuit before it reaches trial.

“Having read very carefully the affidavits filed… I find that most of the paragraphs in both the affidavits do not set out facts which demonstrate that there are genuine issues for trial,” Bychok said at Nunavut’s Court of Justice April 13.

Bychok told Ed Brogden, Adlair’s lawyer, that he has 45 days to submit new affidavits in response to the GN’s motion for summary judgment.

“An affiant may only state what he or she may be permitted to testify to in court as a witness in the proceeding,” Bychok said in his decision.

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

In its statement of claim, Adlair alleged that Aqsaqniq, which touts itself as an Inuit-owned company, is a middleman that gave the day-to-day operations of the medevac service to non-Nunavut companies.

“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 stated.

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.

Much of the content from the affidavits stricken from the record by Bychok dealt with the alleged unsafe and ineffective Learjet obtained by Air Tindi for its medevac responsibilities.

“…The Learjet 35A proposed by the successful Aqsaqniq Airways, and its purported partners, was at all times, and is, illegal and unsafe,” GN lawyer Vince Derose read from one of the Adlair affidavits.

The affidavit also referred to a decision by transportation officials to prohibit the Learjet from landing in Gjoa Haven and Taloyoak due the communities’ short runways.

“This whole section is trying to give evidence on the illegality of a Learjet used by the winning proponent [Air Tindi], whether that Learjet is or is not illegal clearly is a determination to be made by a court and not by the affidavit,” said DeRose.

The requirement in the contract for a Learjet air ambulance with the GN was later modified.

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.

“These are allegations, which, if you’re going to make, you need to establish as fact, and these are, at best, speculation,” DeRose continued.

The future for Adlair’s lawsuit will be decided after new affidavits are submitted to the court, when the justice presiding over the case will decide on the next course of action.

But which judge that will be is unclear, and Bychok reminded lawyers the court is currently stretched thin for available justices.

“We are extremely, extremely stressed, when it comes to judicial resources,” Bychok said.

Both parties have submitted requests for case management to streamline the long-standing case, which is now in its fourth year of deliberations without a set trial date.