Nunavut DM announcement delayed

IQALUIT — Nunavummiut are still waiting for official word on who the first deputy ministers of Nunavut will be.

Interim Commissioner Jack Anawaksaid last weekthat he would announce the names of Nunavut’s 10 deputy ministers and clerk of the legislative assembly Wednesday.

But contract negotiations have delayed the process. Anawak and his communications director flew to Ottawa Wednesday and couldn’t be reached for comment on when the names would be released.

Yellowknife consultant Bill Graham has recently been hired to negotiate the contracts.

Nunatsiaq News has learned that all but two of the deputy ministers are northern residents, and that three of the 11 positions will be held by Inuit.

Bob Varty,currently the assistant deputy minister of finance within the Newfoundland provincial government, is expected to be named Nunavut’s deputy minister for finance.

Bob Moody,a senior bureaucrat within the department of education in Nova Scotia, is expected to be appointed Nunavut’s deputy minister of education.

(Seelast week’s issuefor the names of the other nine people who have been hired as Nunavut deputy ministers.)