Taking jobs from whom?

Last week in the legislature, Iqaluit Centre MLA Hunter Tootoo asked Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq whether the foreign nurses, who were recruited by Nunavut, but didn’t passed their qualifying exams to practice in Canada, are blocking Canadians from taking over the jobs.

Tootoo said these nurses are blocking certain residents of Nunavut, who are registered nurses, because the foreign nurses are slated to go into the communities where they live.

“If there are Canadian nurses that are interested in Nunavut, by all means submit your names. We are interested in recruiting from Canada; we are interested in recruiting nurses in communities that are interested in working for us. The door is open to any nurse that wants to work in Nunavut,” Aglukkaq told Tootoo.

Aglukkaq said Tootoo could provide her with the names of any potential nurses and she would “do what I can to assist in the process.”

But Tootoo later told her that the resident nurses in question didn’t want to have their names or communities mentioned “for fear of reprisal.”

Aglukkaq said that was “absolutely unacceptable,” and her “open door policy” shouldn’t keep anyone from speaking up.