Nunavut searches for new deputy minister of Health and Social Services

SEAN McKIBBON

IQALUIT — The Nunavut government has moved its deputy minister of health and social services out of the department before finding a permanent replacement for him.

Ken MacRury will move from his job as deputy minister of Health and Social Services to a new position as deputy minister of Intergovernmental Affairs.

MacRury will also become secretary to the Senior Personnel Secretariat. This secretariat is an administrative unit within the Department of the Executive that helps with the management of senior level employees working for the Government of Nunavut.

Annette Bourgeois, press secretary for the Premier said this secretariattracks the training of ADMs, and helps with the recruiting and hiring of senior personnel within the Nunavut government.

She also said the secretariat handles issues of conflict of interest for former senior employees of the government.

Stepping temporarily into McRury’s shoes at the health department will be Karen Hecks. Hecks has been seconded from the federal government, and had been filling the position of assistant deputy minister of federal-Nunavut relations.

Meanwhile, the Nunavut government will launch a job competition to find a new deputy minister of health and social services.

New principal secretary

The administrative shuffle comes at the same time as a number of other executive moves, including the departure of Paul McKinstry from his position as the special advisor to Jane Stewart, the beleaguered federal minister of Human Resources, for a job as Premier Paul Okalik’s principal secretary.

Stewart’s department is reeling from public outcry over a $1 billion boondoggle that saw lucrative HRDC grants handed out to Liberal backers with little monitoring or control by the federal human resources department.

McKinstry also worked with Stewart while she was minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

“You need to have someone with a broad understanding of what is going on,” Bourgeois said.

McKinstry’s experience with both HRDC and DIAND would certainly help McKinstry in his new role, she said.

The principle secretary’s job, which is the highest ranking paid political position within the Nunavut premier’s office, has been vacant since last summer, when Joe Kunuk left the job to become deputy minister of Human Resources.

Other Nunavut mandarins changing jobs are Nick Xenos and Jamie Flaherty.

Xenos, who was seconded from the federal government to do work on homelessness for the Nunavut government, will now move to a position as acting policy director within the Department of the Executive and Intergovernmental Affairs.

Flaherty will move from assistant deputy minister of Human Resources to assistant deputy minister of Public Works.