Kitikmeot wants regional HRDC office

SEAN McKIBBON

IQALUIT — Employment training programs for Inuit are being hurt by the absence of a Human Resources and Development Canada (HRDC) office in the Kitikmeot region, says a Kitikmeot Corporation official.

“I can’t believe they’re able to piss away $2 billion [sic], but they won’t open an office over here,” said Keith Peterson, director of the Kitikmeot Corp., referring to the billion dollar job-grant scandal that has dogged the Human Resources Minister Jane Stewart, almost since she became head of the department.

Because there is no HRDC office in his region, Peterson said regional employment officers in the Kitikmeot are spending their time performing basic HRDC functions, such as helping people with Canada Pension Plan and Employment Insurance applications.

Those officers are supposed to be in charge of delivering employment training for aboriginals.

“We [the KIA] have to fund employment officers in each community in Nunavut, but essentially what they end up doing is HRDC type work. So they’re giving us employment training dollars and we’re funding employment officers to basically do work that HRDC should be doing,” Peterson said.

Last week, Stewart signed an agreement with Nunavut’s Department of Education handing over responsibility to the Nunavut government for developing and implementing non-aboriginal-specific job training and re-employment programs.

HRDC will give the Nunavut government $4 million over the next two years for the programs.

The deal basically re-affirmed an arrangement that was already in place with the GNWT, but education officials said last week it would allow them to design Nunavut specific programs and possibly tailor education programs to serve two groups of people: those who qualify for employment insurance and those who are collecting income support payments.

It also handed over responsibility for data collection, employment counselling and job placement services.

The deal came with a one-time payment of $787,000 to the education department to put in place staff and computers to do the new jobs. HRDC staff say that levels of service will still be maintained.

However, concerns already exist about the level of service that Nunavummiut receive.

Peterson said that there are delays for people receiving employment insurance cheques, despite what HRDC says about getting all its cheques out within 28 days. Education Minister James Arvaluk has said publicly that some people who should be receiving EI probably aren’t aware they qualify and turn instead to income support.

Peterson, who is also the mayor of Cambridge Bay, says he had an elder come to him in tears because the elder’s wife had no social insurance number and could not receive her old age pension without one.

He said that, as mayor, he directed municipal staff to help the man with the problem, but he says that sort of problem ought to be handled by HRDC staff. Alternatively, he said Nunavut hamlets should get funding money from Ottawa’s human resources department for doing that kind of work.

The officers don’t mind doing the work, but Peterson said they don’t have enough knowledge of HRDC programs and services to make sure the people they are helping get all that they are entitled to.

Some HRDC forms are so complicated that workers really need someone familiar with them to fill them out, and he said that the employment officers aren’t well versed in how to report data on jobs, re-training programs and applicants.

“Consequently a lot of programs that people may be eligible for or forms that need to be correctly filled out aren’t being done.”

Peterson said he’d like to see HRDC handle their own programs with trained staff who can speak to people in Inuktitut.

“Don’t tell us, ‘phone this 1-800 number for services. That’s just not acceptable,’” he said.

Stewart, however, would not make any commitments on opening an office in the region.

“We’ve got an office here in Iqaluit and here in Rankin Inlet. There has been continued suggestions that a third office would make sense. I’m not in a position to say we’ll be moving in that direction,” she said.

She said it might be possible to work out some sort of agreement with the KIA to perform HRDC functions.

But Peterson worries that by having employment officers do the HRDC’s work it enables them to not do it themselves.

“The longer we continue to do this, the more entrenched it becomes.”