Paranoid chill still afflicts Nunavut women’s council

Speaking out: the Qulliit Nunavut Status of Women Council last year honoured Levi Nowdlak, 18, with their Wise Woman of the Year award for her confronting her sexual abuser and sharing her story publicly. Qulliit’s vice-president, Trista Mercer (left), and executive director Shylah Elliott pose with Nowdlak after presenting the award. This year, however, council members fear retribution from employers, including the GN and NTI, if they speak out about issues affecting women. (FILE PHOTO)

Members of the Qulliit Nunavut Status of Women Council still feel too intimidated by employers, and others, to speak freely in public on issues affecting women, the executive director of the council, Shyla Elliot, said this week.

“The government appoints the council. They’re appointed to fill that role. It absolutely makes no sense,” Elliot said.

Elliot said the matter came to a head recently when Donna Adams of Rankin Inlet, the recently appointed president of the council, was forced to quit a job at Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. to serve on the council.

Elliot said this provided council members with a chilling reminder of what happened in May 2008, when a former president, Donna Olsen-Hakongak , quit the council after getting a threatening phone call from a supervisor.

“Now what has happened because of all this fallout with our past president and our most recent president is that it is making it difficult for women who want to speak out,” Elliot said.

In April of 2008, Olsen-Hakongak, then still president of the council, had made public comments on the election of Joe Otokiak of Cambridge Bay to the presidency of the Kitikmeot Inuit Association. Six months before the election, Otokiak had received a 12-month suspended sentence on a summary conviction for assault against a male complainant.

“On behalf of the council, we strongly believe violence is wrong in all accounts,” Olsen-Hakongak told CBC radio at the time.

Earlier in 2008, the Qulliit council also condemned the appointment of Levi Barnabas, then the MLA for Quttiktuq, to the Nunavut cabinet.

In 2000, while serving in the assembly as speaker, Barnabas, after a drunken evening in Iqaluit, was charged and subsequently convicted of sexually assaulting an Iqaluit woman. On March 17, 2008, Paul Okalik, then the premier, put Barnabas in charge of the Department of Human Resources.

After Qulliit issued these condemnations, Olsen-Hakongak, who worked at the time in the Department of Human Resources, got a phone call in May of 2008 from a supervisor, warning her to “watch what you say.”

Olsen-Hakongak quickly resigned as president of the council and resisted all efforts aimed at persuading her to stay.

“It was Donna’s decision despite our really pushing to keep her on. It was her decision and we had to respect it as such,” Elliot said.

But now that Adams has also been forced out of a job to perform council duties, Elliot says council members still feel intimidated by employers.

They fear that if they speak out too strongly, employers will take their jobs away from them, or intimidate them in other ways.

“This re-ignited the issue all over again — we have the Inuit organizations to deal with as well,” Elliot said.

To fix this, she said council members want legal protection and a clear policy statement from the GN that council members will not be harassed or intimidated for performing their duties.

But apart from an email from the premier saying “it’s all right to speak out,” the council has received little protection from the territorial government, Elliot said.

“Unfortunately, there hasn’t been any clarification up until this point. I know. It’s been two years and it’s ridiculous,” Elliot said.

Elliot agreed that in Nunavut, there is very little understanding of what constitutes conflict of interest and what doesn’t.

Since Qulliit council members are rarely able to obtain any personal benefit from speaking out in public, it’s impossible for them to be placed in any conflict of interest in the first place, she said.

For example, Olsen-Hakongak’s comments about a KIA matter bore no relation to her job at the GN in the first place.

“It really made no sense to begin with,” Elliot said.

And Adams’s new position on the council does not put her in a conflict with her former job at NTI, where she served as executive assistant to land claim boss Raymond Ningeocheak.

“They don’t understand that Donna would not break that confidentiality that she had with NTI. It’s not likely we’re setting spies inside the government,” Elliot said.

One of the council’s stated objectives is to “to encourage discussion and expression of opinion by residents of Nunavut on issues affecting the status of women,” the organization’s website says.

But because of Nunavut’s paranoid political culture, they can’t do that right now.

“The fact that what little we do say, we’re discouraged from saying it, is disheartening,” Elliot said.

She said the GN has told her that they’re working on “some policy” concerning the issue but the council has received nothing on paper so far.

This means the council is likely to go out and pay for its own lawyer to seek legal clarification of their right to freedom of speech.

In 2008, she said there was no money in Qulliit’s budget to pay for a third-party lawyer, which meant they had to rely on GN lawyers.

“If this doesn’t lead to something that’s favourable for the council and move somewhere relatively quickly, I think we’ll just have to find a way to make it happen. We certainly do need some legal backing on this issue, without a doubt.”

The Qulliit council started up on April 1, 2001. All positions on the council are voluntary and part-time, compensated by honoraria.