The note-writer revealed: High Arctic MLA Levi Barnabas

IQALUIT ¬ High Arctic MLA Levi Barnabas has fessed up.

He says he, and not Deputy Premier Goo Arlooktoo, is the author of a controversial note recently sent to Hay River MLA Jane Groenewegen.

Groenewegen, who along with other MLAs had been aggressively interrogating Premier Don Morin and other cabinet ministers about the GNWT’s Lahm Ridge Tower lease, interpreted the note as a thinly veiled threat aimed at intimidating her from asking more questions.

The anonymous note, which was delivered to her last week by a legislative assembly page, referred to an $800,000 grant given to one of Groenewegen’s businesses.

Barnabas says he wrote the note as a joke, and didn’t intend any harm.

But Groenewegen wasn’t amused, and she peppered Morin with questions about whether the note was written by a cabinet minister.

Morin responded by saying that no cabinet minister wrote the note.

“If this member or any other member can prove one of my cabinet ministers wrote that note, you will have my resignation the same day,” Morin said this Monday in response to questions posed by Yellowknife Central MLA Jake Ootes.

Groenewegen the turned the screws a little tighter when she tabled a report from a forensic handwriting expert in British Columbia who concluded that the hand-writing in the note resembled Goo Arlooktoo’s.

But Barnabas ended the controversy Tuesday when he confessed to having written the note.

Tensions have been running high in the legislative assembly over the Lahm Ridge Tower lease, which was the GNWT signed with two of Morin’s close associates.

On Monday, Groenewegen filed a formal conflict of interest complaint against Morin.