Nunavut MLAs to vote on Tootoo’s removal from cabinet

Paul Okalik and Fred Schell will seek Hunter Tootoo’s ouster as Nunavut housing minister over the $60-million fiasco at the Nunavut Housing Corp.

The two MLAs presented a motion in the assembly June 1 calling for Tootoo’s removal from cabinet. The house will vote on the motion June 3.

“It’s called accountability, minister accountability for what has transpired,” said Okalik, who represents Iqaluit West, in an interview. “We expect better of our government.”

Tootoo is in hot water over $60 million worth of cost overruns with the Nunavut Housing Trust.

The $200-million program, announced by the federal government in the 2006 budget, was meant to build 725 homes across the territory.

But last month, the Nunavut Housing Corp. revealed that each of the first 319 units built under the program cost $75,000 more than anticipated, mostly because labour costs ended up 72 per cent higher than forecast.

“When you have a $200-million trust and you go over by $60 million, that’s quite a gap,” Okalik said.

“There are rules that have to be followed in our assembly where ministers who are not meeting our expectations are accountable to the assembly.”

Tootoo said he wasn’t surprised Okalik was behind the motion to remove him from cabinet. Tootoo wouldn’t say exactly why he wasn’t surprised, only that “past predicts future I guess.”

He said he was more surprised only one MLA — Schell, from South Baffin — asked about the housing trust situation during question period on the assembly’s first day back.

During ministers’ statements, finance minister Keith Peterson announced the government’s “four-point action plan” for covering the $60-million overrun.

The housing corporation will cut $18.9 million from its budget, including $11 million in capital spending. Other Government of Nunavut departments will postpone a total of $22 million in capital spending projects for one year and cut $16.8 million in spending.

The GN will also draw $2.3 million from its contingency fund.

Tootoo also announced in the house that the housing corporation has hired accounting firm Deloitte & Touche to audit its books. That audit is to be complete by the end of the summer, he said.

Tootoo acknowledged mistakes were made at the housing trust and said he had met with regular MLAs earlier in the day to talk about the situation.

Last month, Tootoo refused to put blame for the mess on the previous government, or on Peter Scott, the corporation’s former president.

“When you have something put together as quickly, at such a magnitude, as it was, in a few months… things were overlooked,” he said.

Nunavut and Ottawa worked out the trust in 2006, when Okalik was premier, and when former South Baffin MLA Olayuk Akesuk was housing minister.

The federal budget was late that year, leaving only a few months to get supplies ordered in time for that year’s sealift.

“The minister (Tootoo) assured our assembly as recently as last spring that everything was fine and the trust was fine,” Okalik said. “That’s called misleading the house.”

Last month, Schell publicly called on Tootoo to step down over the matter. In an interview May 31, before notice of the motion was given, Premier Eva Aariak didn’t directly answer when asked whether Tootoo should resign.

“We’re dealing with the issue right now, which is the most important thing,” she said. Aariak couldn’t be reached for further comment late June 1.

It wasn’t immediately clear what chance the motion has of passing the assembly.

But generally, when giving notice of a motion, MLAs seek unanimous consent to waive the two-day waiting period, allowing the motion to be debated the same day. Okalik and Schell did not seek that consent.

Okalik said that’s because he wanted “to give due process to the minister.”