Nunavut residents feel alienated

Residents of Nunavut feel public serviceshave slippedsince the territoryseparated from the Northwest Territories 10 years ago, and they feel alienated from their government, according to a report made public Thursday.

The Government of Nunavut Report Card project titled Qanukkanniq?,meaning "What's next?" in Inuktitut was led by former Yukon premier Piers McDonald.

"Unfortunately, [people] feel that they're more distant from government than ever," he said.

"They feel they have a hard time communicating with government. They don't know who to call when they need something. When they do call somebody, they don't answer the phone."

McDonald said there's anxiety about the education system, and a feeling that services to address violence, poverty and substance abuse are inadequate.

The territorial government hired North Sky Consulting in May to prepare an independent report card on the government's programs and services since 1999, when Nunavut officially became its own territory.

The consultants held public hearings in communities across Nunavut in June. They tabled their report with Premier Eva Aariak on Thursday.

It includes 93 specific recommendations for addressing the concerns raised by Nunavummiut in five key areas:

• Housing.
• Social problems (including poverty).
• The quality of education.
• Government of Nunavut hiring practices.
• Poor communications with and by the government.

The review of government operations found that it should focus on six priority areas:

• Communications, both within the government and with the public.
• Stable support of senior management so longer-term projects can be completed.
• Createa priorities implementation committee to put formal mechanisms in place tobuild better collaboration between departments.
• Provide basic tools such as good financial information andreliable information technologysystems.
• Hire staff on merit, support existing staff with training, and new staff with orientation.
• Do operational review to see what can be salvaged from the original goal of a decentralized government.

McDonald said there's concern that too many people are in jobs they're not qualified for,there's too little training andthe operating environment is extremely troubled and in some cases, dysfunctional.

"You've really got to get the departments working efficiently and co-operatively, this is a key feature," he said.

He says the report card shows it's time to get back to basics.