Makivik, KSB await court decision

ODILE NELSON

Makivik Corp. may wait six months before it hears if the Quebec Superior Court will throw out the Kativik School Board’s motion for an injunction to suspend Nunavik’s continuing new-government negotiations.

Lawyers for Makivik and the school board presented their cases in a Montreal courthouse May 2 to 9.

But Lisa Koperqualuk, spokesperson for Makivik, said this Monday that because the judge in the case knows little about Nunavik, it may be months before the court gives its decision.

“It’s hard to tell when the decision will be made,” Koperqualuk said. “The judge has six months to respond. She could respond earlier but she could take the whole six months.

“The judge seemed like she really had to study the case because she was not aware of the North or informed on the institutions…. It was the first time really that she was being introduced to the North.”

Last week’s hearing was only the latest episode in a legal saga between Makivik and the school board.

In November 2002, the KSB filed a motion against Makivik in Quebec Superior Court to freeze new-government negotiations.

Makivik has been negotiating a framework agreement for a new government for Nunavik with the federal and provincial governments since the summer of 2002.

Makivik says it is negotiating on behalf of the Nunavik Party, which is made up of the Inuit birthright organization, the Kativik Regional Government, the Kativik Regional Development Council, the Nunavik Board of Health and Social Services and the school board.

The school board, however, has not been involved in the talks since it protested the Nunavik Commission’s 2001 Let Us Share Report. The school board believes this document should not form the basis of negotiations since it was not signed by all of its commissioners.

The school board says Makivik is acting illegally and that Makivik negotiators never received a mandate to represent the Nunavik Party at the negotiating table.

It filed the November motion to ensure negotiations stop until “a consensus could be reached among the five members of the Nunavik Party.”

The school board has gone on the record as saying Makivik “has been acting unilaterally and without authorization as if it alone was the Nunavik Party.”

“The Kativik School Board has the right and the obligation to be a part of a democratic self-government negotiation process. If the school board is not involved, then the subject of education cannot be part of the negotiations,” it said in a February press release.

If the judge decides against Makivik’s motion, the school board’s injunction request will be heard December 1 to 12 in Montreal.