Red-faced Nunavut officials cave in on Gardener health bill

Mike Gardener, the highly respected retired Anglican cleric from Iqaluit, won’t have to pay a huge bill he received for an eight-month stay at the privately-owned Larga Baffin patient home in Ottawa. (FILE PHOTO)

(Updated 10:25 a.m.)
Red-faced Nunavut government officials caved in Oct. 9 to public outrage over a $34,000 bill which was handed to an elderly non-Inuk resident of Nunavut for his stay at a patient residence in Ottawa.

Tagak Curley, Nunavut’s health minister, told CBC radio that the GN would find the money to cover a $34,000 bill given Sept. 22 to Rev. Mike Gardener, 79, a retired Anglican minister, for his eight-month stay at the Larga Baffin patient home in Ottawa.

“He will not pay a penny. Zero,” Curley said, advising all non-beneficiaries to check first before they stay at GN patient boarding homes.

“That’s what happens, when you have a lot of pressure. Government won’t make that kind of mistake again. From now on, we should watch them more carefully and closely,” said Peter Irniq, a former commissioner of Nunavut, and one of many high-profile Nunavummiut who were shocked by the treatment meted out by the GN to Rev. Gardener, who is a member of the Order of Canada for his long service to Nunavummiut.

Rev. Gardener, who spent more than 50 years on Baffin Island, received a bill for $34,000 from the GN’s health department on Sept. 22, days before his 79th birthday on Sept. 26.

That amount was reduced to half — about $17,000 — but it’s still more than the old pensioner is able to pay.

Rev. Gardener had been staying at Larga Baffin patient residence since January because his wife Margaret, 80, was hospitalized in Ottawa.

Along with the bill, Rev. Gardener was also told to leave the residence to make room for Inuit beneficiaries.

That’s a racist policy, said Susan Gardener, one of his three children, who lives in Iqaluit.

“Why don’t they tell people who can afford to leave? Why specifically whites? It’s not the Inuit way, anyway,” she said in an interview.

Her father stayed at Larga Baffin because he had always stayed there previously. He was almost like a member of the staff there, Susan Gardener said.

After spending all day at the hospital with his wife, Rev. Gardener would return to the residence where other residents would often line up outside of his door for counseling, she said.

Her father had no idea that he would face a bill of about $140 a day for this stay — or be asked to leave.

“It was terrible,” said Susan Gardener. “He didn’t know that was coming. Nobody said anything. That was a real shocker… Happy Birthday, Dad.”

After being “kicked out” of Baffin Larga, Susan Gardener’s father is now staying at the Parkdale Residence, part of Ottawa’s Civic Hospital, where he pays $56 a night, not including food.

That’s a lot of money to pay on minister’s minimal pension, Susan Gardener said.

And he must now travel back and forth between Parkdale and Baffin Larga to visit the family’s ailing mother, she said

After the public learned about Rev. Gardener’s plight, letters and vows of support poured in. An elder brought Susan Gardener $446.58 in a ziploc bag to help her father.

Another woman gave her a $50 bill to help out. People in Pangnirtung offered to hold a fundraiser.

“People are very kind,” Susan Gardener said.

But she said she’s still angry.

And it’s not the first time her family has suffered from discrimination due to their ethnicity, she said.

Her sister Ann, who lives in Grise Fiord, had to pay for her own lodging when she underwent cancer treatments in Montreal.

Susan Gardener also said it’s unfair that two of her children, who are not beneficiaries, don’t get the same educational benefits, such as free child care or no-strings-attached FANS money, as her beneficiary daughter can.

And in the future they will also face discrimination when they look for a job, she said.

The Government of the Northwest Territories used to give long-time residents who spent 10 years or half their life some priority for hiring.

“But we’re not even allowed in the back door. There is no place for whites. It’s supposed to be a public government,” Susan Gardener said.

Although the GN cut her father’s share of the bill to half, and now, in an unexpected about-face, says he won’t have to pay a penny, Susan Gardener said it’s not really about the money but about a government policy that treats people differently according to the colour of their skin.

“If you can fight the policy, the money will go away,” she said. “In this day and age people don’t feel with their heart when they’re making decisions. Maybe they don’t even use their head. They just look at the black and white, and figure that’s the law, and it doesn’t matter who you are. I don’t think that’s kind of government we want.”

After learning about the GN’s change of heart, Peter Irniq said he’s still shocked by what happened.

“The GN still has to have a clear statement of policy,” Irniq said. “Because ‘he is not a beneficiary’ sounds to me like discriminating against non-Inuit. It is certainly not Inuit way of doing things.”

Irniq recalled that when Curley’s company built the legislative assembly of Nunavut, they put 12 seats inside the ropes, behind the MLAs’ seats, for elders to offer advice to the government leaders.

“I know this is how much Tagak Curley, respects the elders of Nunavut. The minister, has to live up to his own actions. What just happened to Mike Gardener, it’s just not acceptable.”

Irniq, a former cabinet minister in the GNWT, said he was sure that the Nunavut cabinet was in a meeting early on Oct. 9, talking about “what should not have happened.”

“Now that there is a problem, they will need to fix it. I wonder if this type of situation has happened to non-Inuit as well, and we just have not heard about it,” he said.

Related stories:
• Iqaluit man gets $17,000 bill for boarding home stay because he’s not aboriginal (Ottawa Citizen)
• Iqaluit retiree not on hook for boarding home bill (CBC)