ITK candidate wants “universal” Inuit election

The Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami should go back to its old practice of holding Arctic-wide elections among all Canadian Inuit voters to choose a president, says Robbie Watt, one of two candidates nominated for the job.

Watt first raised the idea in an interview with William Tagoona of CBC Kuujjuaq on June 3, after ITK’s board announced that its decision to postpone this year’s presidential election for four months, until Oct. 20.

“Taking into consideration that they did not follow their set policies and procedures in regards to the nomination process, I felt that it would only be fair to reinstate the election process that once existed within ITK, which is a universal election,” Watt said in a telephone interview with Nunatsiaq News this week.

The last such pan-Arctic vote was held in 1995, when Rosemarie Kuptana defeated Ruby Arna’naaq by a narrow margin to win a second term as president of the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, as ITK was then known.

ITK’s board removed Kuptana before she was able to finish her term, amid a series of allegations related to financial irregularities, and appointed Mary Sillet of Labrador to replace her. At the time, ITK was groaning under the weight of an accumulated deficit that exceeded $600,000.

Since then, the organization’s eight-member board, and no one else, has decided who will head Canada’s national Inuit organization.

The latest “election” was scheduled for June 12, during an ITK board meeting that was supposed to have been held in Puvirnituq.

Watt, and Pitseolak Pfeiffer, ITK’s former socio-economic director, had each been accepted as eligible candidates after the nomination period closed on May 23.

But in an abrupt move last week, ITK’s board delayed the Puvirnituq vote — and the election — until October, saying they want more candidates. In a press conference last week, ITK’s current president, Jose Kusugak, refused to say why the board believes Watt and Pfeiffer aren’t acceptable candidates.

“That only creates two types of candidates. One that they want, and one that’s trying to run for the Inuit…. That’s why we need a universal election to be able to not create what Inuit are going to perceive as the board picking their puppets,” Watt said.

ITK’s postponement took both candidates by surprise. But they each say they plan to stay in the contest, and that they’re more determined than ever before to campaign for ITK’s top job.

“I was pretty shocked. I was more or less dumbfounded. There was a lot of emotions that I was going through,” Watt said. “But I’ve been encouraged by quite a lot of people just to stay in the race. This gives me more of a cause to want to run.”

The new deadline for receipt of nominations is Sept. 20 at 5 p.m. Any Inuk, or any land claim organization, may nominate a candidate.