MLAs ponder extending information, privacy rules to hamlets

The person at the top of the Government of Nunavut’s organization chart is also first on the City of Iqaluit’s voters list.

Of course, that’s just the kind of coincidence that can happen when your last name is Aariak.

“The first name on the list is our own premier, Eva Aariak,” said Sanikiluaq MLA Allan Rumboldt Thursday, during hearings on the most recent report by Nunavut’s information and privacy commissioner, Elaine Keenan Bengts.

Bengts acknowledged the city’s need to maintain an accurate voters list, but said she’s concerned that the voters list puts people’s home addresses on the internet.

The commissioner said she’s not sure what the point is of posting online more than “the bare minimum: names.”

Kirt Ejesiak, the city’s chief electoral officer, said Friday he’d decided to remove street addresses from the online voters list and had been trying to contact Bengts for advice.

“Having physical addresses is overkill,” he said.

By 3 p.m. Friday afternoon, home addresses had been removed from the voters list at www.iqaluitelections.ca. And copies of the voters list posted around town were due to come down over the weekend, because the deadline for changes to the voters list is Oct. 6 when an advance poll is open at the Cadet Hall between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Ejesiak’s office will retain a more detailed copy of the list at polling stations to ensure there’s no confusion over people who have the same names.

MLAs on the government operations and public accounts committee asked Bengts about whether Nunavut municipalities should fall under the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Right now they don’t, although Bengts said she believes that will eventually change.

“Municipal governments have to be accountable just the same as territorial governments or federal governments,” she said in response to a question from Baker Lake MLA Moses Aupaluktuk.

Right now there’s no way for Nunavummiut to force hamlets to release information that local governments might prefer to keep secret. And there’s no way for Nunavummiut to seek recourse if they feel a hamlet wrongly released personal information about them.

Bengts said the federal privacy commissioner believes the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act applies to municipalities in the three territories, because they territories don’t have the same legal status as provinces.

Bengts said she disagrees, but a territorial law outlining municipalities’ responsibilities on information and privacy would clear up the confusion. And she said some municipalities would welcome the clarity that would come with extending the existing ATIPP act to municipalities, or creating new legislation.

Iqaluit mayor Elisapee Sheutiapik, who’s also the president of the Nunavut Association of Municipalities, said Friday she’s not sure there’s a need to extend the act to municipalities because “we’re so open.”

Sheutiapik also said some residents might hesitate to send emails to city hall because of fears they might become public.

Not only that, Sheutiapik wondered if smaller hamlets would be able to handle the workload from ATIPP requests.

“I think [small hamlets] have capacity issues already,” she said.

Iqaluit West MLA Paul Okalik suggested a central office to coordinate ATIPP requests on behalf of municipalities, while Bengts suggested a period of voluntary compliance with ATIPP rules so municipalities could get used to the practice.