Special constable ineligible for pension: RCMP

Some of the RCMP's special constables in Canada's Arctic have not been eligible for a pension, frustrating the granddaughter of an Inuit special constable who died in the line of duty in 1954.

Deborah Webster has been fighting for her grandfather, RCMP Special Const. Andrew Ooyoumut, to be properly recognized for the work he did for the RCMP in Baker Lake, in what is today Nunavut.

Ooyoumut had worked as an Inuit hunter, translatorand guide for the Baker Lake Mounties for eight years before he drowned in 1954, while tending to fish nets so he could feed the detachment's sled dog team.

Earlier this month, the RCMP said it will add Ooyoumut's name to its cenotaph, honour roll and memorial wall plaque next year. However, the police force has said it still won't provide Ooyoumut's family with a pension.

The RCMP said it gave Ooyoumut's widow a payment of two months' salary just after his death.

But Webster said the RCMP should treat Ooyoumut's family as they would any other RCMP officer who dies in the line of duty.

"Ooyoumut worked just as hard as all the other special constables and RCMP members," Webster told CBC News in an interview.

"I don't understand why he was left out, and I think that the RCMP failed him."

Depends on designation

RCMP officials said Ooyoumut was not eligible for a pension because he was not a designated special constable under the RCMP Act.

"A special constable, in order to be designated, had to be performing police-like duties," said Supt. Gilles Moreau, the RCMP's assistant director of national compensation services.

"In his file, there is no documentation indicating that, and therefore he was not recommended to be designated."

Ooyoumut's RCMP service file shows he was hired as a hunter and guide a role that other former special constables say was crucial for the RCMP in the early part of the 20th century.

"Our ancestors made a lot of difference. Otherwise, the RCMP would not have survived by dog team," said Sandy Akavak, a retired special constable from Kimmirut, Nunavut,

Dan Fudge, a retired RCMP commanding officer, said he believes a pension should be paid to special constables like Ooyoumut.

"He was a full-time employee and therefore should have been entitled to whatever full-time employees were entitled to at the time, and I assume that would have been some sort of pension," Fudge said.

The RCMP said 66 special constables have received pensions, while about 390 did not.