QIA in disarray?

ALISON BLACKDUCK

IQALUIT — Employees of the Qikiqtani Inuit Association claim they’re getting ground up in the northern rumour mill, which, they say, is spinning overtime at the expense of their organization’s reputation.

Ever since John Amagoalik was hired last April as the association’s executive director, and then suspended from his job with pay soon after, Nunavut’s spring air has been hot with scuttlebutt about the reasons for Amagoalik’s suspension.

Others are questioning the effectiveness of new QIA President Meeka Kilabuk’s damage-control skills.

“Any type of rumours out there are pissing me off and they’re pissing the people [who work] here off,” an annoyed John MacDougall said in an interview Monday morning.

MacDougall began working as a policy analyst for QIA 10 months ago.

When first asked if there was any truth to the rumours now circulating in Iqaluit about QIA’s internal strife, MacDougall demanded to know who is spreading the gossip, then guffawed, “The ‘word on the street’ probably comes from one or two obsessives with ‘axes to grind.’”

MacDougall admits that a few people have quit jobs with the association over the past two months, but said they left to take jobs with other employers, and people shouldn’t assume automatically that the QIA isn’t managed well.

“People do leave jobs to go onto other opportunities,” he said.

No comment on suspension

But most of the rumours making the rounds in Nunavut centre on Amagoalik’s suspension, and the circumstances of his current place of residence — an apartment unit in a QIA-owned building across from Iqaluit’s Northmart store known locally as the “blue dome.”

Speaking in the foyer of the dome’s residential entrance Monday morning, Amagoalik said he’s lived there for about a month, but declined to comment any further about either his suspension or his housing situation.

“I’ll comment when the executive committee makes a decision about what’s happening with me,” he said.

When asked whether he’d been evicted or if he knew about any plans to evict him, he started responding, “I haven’t been,” then stopped himself and said, “No comment.”

When asked about Amagoalik’s suspension, MacDougall said, “I don’t know what happened between John and Meeka. He’s been suspended with pay, so it’s not like he’s been dismissed.”

Three sources who do not wish to be identified said that, earlier this year, the Nunasi Corporation had asked Amagoalik to vacate a Nunasi-owned house in Iqaluit for non-payment of rent.

“He’s not a public figure, so the public doesn’t have a right to know how much he earns.”

—QIA employee John MacDougall, when asked if John Amagoalik is paying rent on the organization’s blue dome building.

The house had at one time served as staff accommodation for him when he was head of the Nunavut Implementation Commission, a job that ended on April 1, 1999.

According to MacDougall, nobody has been appointed formally by the QIA executive committee to work as acting executive director, though he said Salomie Shoo has been acting in that capacity since Amagoalik’s suspension.

Also, he said, the committee members hired somebody as an assistant executive director to Amagoalik two weeks ago.

QIA bosses in Ottawa

MacDougall said the executive committee, which is comprised of six QIA members, including president Kilabuk, may adjudicate Amagolik’s suspension as early as this week.

But speaking in a telephone interview from Ottawa, where she’s learning how to improve internal organizational management, Kilabuk said a date hasn’t been set for such a meeting.

On the matter of Amagoalik’s residence and whether he’s paying rent to QIA, MacDougall confirmed that Amagoalik is living in the dome’s apartment, but wouldn’t disclose how much money — if any — Amagoalik is paying for rent.

“Maybe the rent is coming out of his northern living allowance,” MacDougall speculated.

But MacDougall wouldn’t discuss how much money the QIA is spending on Amagoalik’s salary and benefits package.

“He’s not a public figure, so the public doesn’t have a right to know how much he earns,” MacDougall said.

Since Amagoalik was suspended, Kilabuk has been out of town attending meetings in Winnipeg and Ottawa; yet another development that’s feeding the rumour frenzy.

There are some Nunavummiut who perceive Kilabuk’s recent absence from Nunavut as an unsophisticated ploy aimed at either evading the controversy surrounding Amagoalik’s suspension or to detract public attention from the difficulties that some people allege are plaguing the association.

On the other hand, MacDougall said, it could also be that people are letting their imaginations and their tongues run riot.

Kilabuk, executive committee members, and a couple of QIA employees were in Ottawa this week attending a workshop on the “Carter Model of Organization,” which, according to MacDougall, was led by Tony Chan of Yellowknife.

“The workshop was scheduled before the ‘John situation’ came up,” MacDougall explained. “The committee members wanted it held in Ottawa so they wouldn’t be bothered by constituents and family members, and could have a chance to focus on the task at hand rather than be distracted by a lot of little things.”

The association has also never said why former president Pauloosie Keyotak was removed from office last year, thus creating the vacancy that Meeka Kilabuk filled in a subsequent election.