Neophyte bureaucrat to run justice department

Premier Paul Okalik has picked a former legal aid lawyer with no previous experience in territorial government administration to run Nunavut’s Department of Justice.

Markus Weber, a newcomer to Nunavut’s territorial government, will start his new job Oct. 20.

He succeeds the respected Nora Sanders, who departed suddenly from her job this past May.

The government’s side of the story is that Okalik, who is also the minister of justice, asked for Sanders’ resignation because of the “handling of an RCMP investigation” into a Liquor Act charge laid against Kevin O’Brien, the former MLA for Arviat and speaker of the legislative assembly.

O’Brien was charged in July of 2003 for illegally possessing liquor in Arviat, a dry community. In January of 2004, he paid a $215 fine after pleading guilty. But MLAs were enraged because they, and O’Brien’s constituents, didn’t know about it until after the territorial election in February.

Sanders soon found a deputy minister position in the Government of Saskatchewan, and Anthony Saez, an assistant deputy minister, filled in while the Government of Nunavut searched for a replacement.

Weber holds a law degree and an MBA from the University of Alberta in Edmonton. In Nunavut, he has worked as a staff lawyer at the Maliiganik Tukisiiniakvik legal aid society in Iqaluit, and as executive director of the Law Society of Nunavut, a regulatory body for lawyers in the territory.