Nunavut government will appoint three new watchdogs

MICHAELA RODRIGUE
Nunatsiaq News

IQALUIT — The foundations for a new set of Nunavut government watchdogs are about to be put into place.

Peter Irniq, who until now has served as Nunavut’s deputy minister of the Culture, Language, Elders and Youth, has been re-assigned to the legislative assembly, where he will establish offices for Nunavut’s Language Commissioner, Access to Information Commissioner, and Conflict of Interest Commissioner.

Irniq, along with John Quirke, the clerk of the legislative assembly, must find office space and advertise for candidates for the commissioners’ posts.

The team is also expected to pin-point some of the policy decisions that Nunavut’s MLAs will have to make for each of the three offices.

“We’ll look at the legislation of the official languages and we’ll see does it go far enough? Is it in concert with the government’s proposed policies? It may require amendments,” Quirke said.

“There may be recommendations coming from him for internal consumption and would eventually go to members to consider,” Quirke said.

Other questions sure to be asked of the legislative assembly include whether to merge the access to information and language commissions into one office, Quirke said.

“That is a possibility. We do know that the recent Morin report did recommend the combining of those functions,” Quirke said.

Irniq, who has yet to leave his position with the Nunavut government’s culture department, declined to comment on his new position until he had received more details from Quirke.

Irniq is scheduled to begin his new position in August. Carmen Levi, who has served as an assistant deputy minister in the education department, will become acting deputy minister of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth

Quirke estimates the work will be completed before the legislative assembly resumes sitting on Oct. 20.

At that time a list of all applicants for the commissioner position should be presented to the legislature. It’s hoped the legislative assembly will appoint commissioners to each of the positions during the next session, Quirke said.

One challenge facing Irniq and Quirke is to find office space for the commissioners and their support staff. The Language Commissioner has a three-person office. The Conflict of Interest Commission and Access to Information Commission are each made up of one person plus casual secretarial staff.

Irniq will consider locating each office in the same building and have them share support staff, Quirke said.

One possibility for office space is building 917, where the staff of the legislative assembly currently work, Quirke said. Those employees will move into the new legislative building this fall.