Nunavut at 16: How is decentralization working?

Joe Savikataaq is worried government jobs are being drained from Arviat and landing in Iqaluit.

The Arviat South MLA says job movement is never advertised, but the government should stick by its decentralization policy: One job out equals one job in.

"If they designated X number of jobs for Arviat in the beginning of decentralization, theoretically we should still have those same number of jobs," he says."But I don't think it works like that. I'm pretty sure we have a net loss of jobs from Arviat."

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Over the past few years, Savikataaq said, seven positions from the Nunavut Housing Corporation have been relocated to Iqaluit from Arviat, and another from Nunavut Arctic College has been temporarily placed in Iqaluit.

Communities need these jobs,Savikataaq said, and the government will pay in one way or another.

"If these jobs aren't in small, decentralized communities, income support will definitely go up, social issues might go up. Decentralization is good because it spreads the work around."

Type of job changing

Savikataaq said he understands it can be difficult to fill technical jobs in decentralized communities, and so does the Nunavut government. Its focus is now on keeping its 60 per cent average of government jobs outside of Iqaluit.

In September 2014, there were 2,842 positions outside of Iqaluit, including 459 that were designated decentralized. Ten of Nunavut's 26 communities Arviat, Baker Lake, Cambridge Bay, Cape Dorset, Gjoa Haven, Igloolik, Kugluktuk, Pangnirtung, Pond Inlet and Rankin Inlet are decentralized.

That means the types of jobs in communities are changing. It could mean more administrative and middle management positions.

Premier Peter Taptuna says technical positions could be moved to a regional centre if they are not filled in a community.

"We want to put positions in there that are doable what I call bread-and-butter jobs for the community because it's just like any other corporation or government," the premier told CBC News. "We want to make sure locals are hired for some of these positions."

"We're feeling quite comfortable," says Taptuna, because the government is meeting its targets. He says the number of government positions has gone up across the territory since 2004 and the government hopes to keep up that growth.

Taptuna says the government is working on a new decentralization action plan. He hopes it will be approved by cabinet in the spring.

Focus on recruitment

Graham White, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, says jobs leaving smaller communities for Iqaluit isn't new. A 2011 consultant's report by Oliver Wyman found decentralized jobs in communities were phantom jobs that were being done in Iqaluit.

White said the original idea behind decentralization was not just to send jobs to communities, but to place decision- making power in different parts of the territory.

Now, he says, the Nunavut government should focus on recruiting and training people to fill jobs anywhere in the territory, something that should have happened a long time ago.

"Falling out of that, one would hope, is not just improvements in Iqaluit in terms of the strengths and nature of the GN but in the decentralized communities as well."