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John Amagoalik, a 78-year-old Inuit leader often referred to as the Father of Nunavut, returns home to Iqaluit, Nu, after 16 months spent living at a long-term care home in Ottawa, in June.Roger Belanger/The Globe and Mail
John Amagoalik, often called the Father of Nunavut, has filed an application for judicial review in the Nunavut Court of Justice over the territorial government’s refusal to pay for his at-home care and housing.
Mr. Amagoalik, a former politician in his late 70s, is credited for his involvement in the creation of the territory in April, 1999.
He and his legal team are challenging the government’s refusal to provide Mr. Amagoalik with home care and housing in Iqaluit, even though it was willing to pay double the cost for long-term care access more than 2,000 kilometres away in Ottawa.
In February, 2025, Mr. Amagoalik had surgery at the Qikiqtani General Hospital in Iqaluit, where his right leg was partially amputated.
He was transferred from the hospital to Embassy West Senior Living, a long-term care home in Ottawa that offers care to patients under a contract with the Government of Nunavut’s health department.
In his affidavit filed on Monday, Mr. Amagoalik said he did not “knowingly consent to being moved to Embassy West on a permanent basis.”
Mr. Amagoalik returned home to Iqaluit in June, after writing a letter to Nunavut’s health minister describing his deep desire “to live out my final days with my family in the territory I fought to create.”
But it was a trio of advocates that included Anne Crawford of Iqaluit, Steve Kelliher of Victoria and Mark Stiles of Ottawa, who teamed up to support the Amagoalik family. They reached out to friends and former colleagues to help establish a care plan for Mr. Amagoalik.
They also used donations to help pay for medical assessments, equipment, supplies and daily home care from personal support workers in Iqaluit.
Mr. Amagoalik and his supporters were hopeful his return to Nunavut’s capital could pave the way for other elders from the territory to return home from Embassy West.
More than 60 Inuit live at the long-term care residence because the territory does not have enough long-term care beds and specialized supports.
Ms. Crawford, Mr. Kelliher and Mr. Stiles said they met with Heather Hair, Nunavut’s assistant deputy minister of health, on July 14 and expressed to her that the territory’s health department needed to assume responsibility for Mr. Amagoalik’s continued care.
Although they said that Ms. Hair expressed a desire to look into all possible means to support Mr. Amagoalik’s long-term care needs, they received a letter in August that said the government would provide a maximum of two hours of personal support care a week.
They also learned the territory would not assume Mr. Amagoalik’s housing costs of about $2,000 a month.
“Privately contracted care services and independent housing arrangements remain separate from department-funded Home Care services. Consequently, they cannot be provided or funded through the Department’s Home Care Program,” the letter said.
“The Department is not responsible for housing and is unable to transfer funds allocated to existing elder facility contracts to pay for private housing for individuals.”
The Government of Nunavut could not immediately be reached on Thursday for comment on the case, which remains before the courts.
Mr. Kelliher said Mr. Amagoalik’s support network has spent about $25,000 to help him. “There are virtually no funds left,” he said in an interview on Thursday.
The cost to the territory of keeping Mr. Amagoalik at Ottawa’s Embassy West was about $32,000 a month, he added. He said the cost of support him in Nunavut would be roughly $16,000 a month.
“We’re asking them to pay in Nunavut half of what they were paying in Ottawa,” said Mr. Kelliher. “The issue here is cruelty, not policy.”
With reports from Kelly Grant