He’s the boss

If you want understand why Premier Paul Okalik shuffled his cabinet and reassigned such a large number of senior managers last week, the first thing you must do is ignore all the nonsense about Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit and the Bathurst Mandate.

This is what Okalik is quoted as saying in a GN press release announcing the civil service job switches: “I am committed to using the values in the Bathurst Mandate as a tool to build a government that promotes Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit. These changes will help realize the goal of building a public service that is reflective of all the people it seeks to serve.”

Yeah, right.

The Bathurst Mandate never did mean much. For those of you who have yet to see it, it reads like a peyote-inspired dream-fantasy, a kind of infantile wish-list of things that Nunavut is supposed to have by 2020. Nunavut MLAs made it all up in 1999, allegedly through consensus, after a series of behind-closed-doors retreats. One of the more amusing items in it says Nunavut will have a single time zone.

The words “Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit,” on the other hand, actually do mean something, depending on the context. But in the context of last week’s senior job assignments, they’re meaningless. Like the words “Bathurst Mandate,” the government, as it so often does, is using the words “Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit” as a political marketing slogan, tacked on to conceal motives it would rather not acknowledge.

As for what the premier’s real motives are, we’ll never know. But there’s no reason to believe they’re illegitimate motives.

It’s the premier’s prerogative to assign cabinet portfolios. By demoting Peter Kilabuk to the community government and CLEY portfolios and by elevating Manitok Thompson to Education, Okalik did nothing surprising.

The department of education has become a serious political liability for the government, and it’s to be expected that the premier would at least put on a show of concern about it. In reality, though, not much of anything is likely to happen in that department between now and the next election. Thompson’s role will be that of an agreeable caretaker.

In his complex reassignment of senior officials, Okalik is displaying another power of the premier that’s not so well publicized – the power to decide where senior non-elected officials will work.

He has appointed a new boss of all bosses, John Walsh, who will move from the community government department to become the new deputy minister of the executive and secretary to cabinet. Walsh replaces Anne Crawford, who will look after the department of health and social services until a permanent deputy minister for health, Bernie Blais, arrives in July.

It’s the kind of job that Walsh has done before, in the Yukon, and his new appointment is a sign that Okalik wants to strengthen the premier’s dominance of the civil service.

Another significant move is Okalik’s hiring of his old friend and former campaign manager, Kirt Ejesiak, as principle secretary – the top job in the premier’s office.

Although this appointment smells like cronyism, it’s the premier’s prerogative to hire his own people to staff his own office, just like other cabinet ministers. The principal secretary’s job, however, has been a revolving door since 1999 – Ejesiak is the fourth or fifth person to hold it.

The most experienced and competent person to ever hold the principal secretary’s job, Paul McKinstry, didn’t last long. He left his job abruptly in 2001, amid a cloud of rumours that suggested his work was being undermined by others close to the premier. It remains to be seen whether Eejesiak can provide Okalik with the kind of political advice that he needs to hear.

Okalik’s announcement last week may have conveyed a vague and confusing message to the public. But his unspoken message to the GN employees was clear: he’s the boss. JB