The race is on: 4 people eyeing run for NTI’s presidency
Byelection scheduled for December following resignation of Jeremy Tunraluk
From left, Cathy Towtongie, Andrew Nakashuk, Jeremy Tunraluk and Manitok Thompson have expressed interest in running in Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.’s presidential byelection in December. (File photos)
The race to be the next president of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. is already shaping up, close to a year before Nunavut beneficiaries will go to the polls.
So far, four potential candidates are thinking of running.
“I have seriously thought about it, and I am planning to run,” Andrew Nakashuk said in a phone interview Friday.
The Pangnirtung resident ran for the position in 2021 and again in 2024, losing first to Aluki Kotierk and then to Jeremy Tunraluk.
The presidency of NTI — the organization that ensures promises made under the Nunavut Agreement are carried out — became vacant after Tunraluk resigned Wednesday following a period of unpaid leave as he was facing an assault charge.
At Tunraluk’s first court appearance, on Jan. 15, the Crown stayed the charge. A stay halts the prosecution of a criminal charge, but the Crown can choose to resume prosecution within a year of entering a stay.
The NTI board of directors voted unanimously to recommend Tunraluk’s removal as he “failed to meet the high standards of conduct expected of Inuit leaders,” the organization’s communications director Ivaluarjuk Merritt said.
On Wednesday, Tunraluk announced his resignation.
Vice-president Paul Irngaut is serving as president in the interim until a new president is elected.
Tunraluk, who was elected to a four-year term as president in December 2024, criticized NTI’s administration for “getting rid of him” and vowed to run in the December byelection.
The 11-month wait until the byelection is “too far,” said Cathy Towtongie, a former MLA and NTI president. She said Friday she is thinking about whether to run.
In the 2024 presidential election, she finished second behind Tunraluk in a four-person race.
The lengthy wait until the byelection will unfairly benefit Irngaut if he chooses to seek the presidency, Towtongie said.
“It will give the vice-president, who’s acting as the president, time to campaign across Nunavut on NTI funds.”
The date of the byelection was determined by the board of directors and coincides with scheduled elections for the two vice-president positions. NTI election rules don’t specify when a byelection must be called after the president’s seat becomes vacant.
Irngaut couldn’t be reached for comment Friday on whether he plans to run in the presidential byelection.
Former MLA Manitok Thompson said she agrees the byelection should have been scheduled for an earlier date.
Thompson said she is thinking about putting her name forward to run.
“I’m just putting feelers out now, so I have to observe what the political environment is first,” she said in a Facebook message Friday.
An NTI representative couldn’t be reached for comment Friday.
How much for my vote?
Where do I get the gift card?
Vote Manitok. She says NTI should give every voting inuk $5000
Cathy and Maniituq do us all a favor and don’t run.
I agree, maniituq should not run. However, Cathy should.
It’s time for both of them to step back and retire. Us younger Inuit that they raised and created the Land Claim for need to step up and start doing our part. C’mon Inuit, let’s do this!!!
I agree with what you are saying. There are a number of graduates from the Inuit school in Ottawa. Why are they not running?
Graduating from NS is the Nunavut equivalent of a getting high school diploma down south. NTI needs a young leader with a university degree or a lot of leadership experience. Someone that is in it for innovative change, not only a fat paycheck.
bottom of the barrel
Okay
Where are all the bright young inuit? This is your time to shine. What a depressing list of potential candidates.
Good, Jeremy clearly wasn’t the proper President but it’s time for the next generation to step up. Cathy and Manitok we need you to start taking your proper roles and become our knowledge sharing elders that help us younger Inuit implement things. The proper Inuit in their 30’s, 40’s and 50’s need to get their acts together, start understanding the importance of the Nunavut Agreement and all the agreements that have been made or need to be made AND then work towards implementing them. Let’s actually do our own work with the federal government and not let ITK do it as much as they do for us or at least not bow down to ITK as much as we do. We can do more for ourselves. Inuit should read the Inuit Nunangat Policy of the Inuit-Crown Partnership Committee that governs how the federal government and Inuit work together and ‘supposedly’ gives ITK power but it really doesn’t. So please can our next leader go into it with this sort of understanding? So let’s move on to the next generation and begin working on what our parents started.
Sad list of candidates… rinse and repeat, sadly. There are SO many bright and capable Inuit in Nunavut. Time to muster your courage and step up. Out with the old, in with the new… please.
Majority of the electorate is disenfranchised, under educated and are inclined to elect someone they can relate to which isn’t someone who is educated. As such, it’s a bit of a fools game to run in such a race.
NTI hasn’t helped Inuit understand politics lets alone what the organization does and after all these years, and it seems to be intentional.
Nunavut elections are a popularity contest. It’s not about political positions. And even in the past when it sort of was, insomuch the candidate who promised Inuit that we’d receive dividends, it never happened.
The only way NTI has increased voter turnout is to provide Inuit $100 gift card. Voters aren’t connected to our Inuit organizations, despite the significant role that these organizations are supposed to do on our behalf. Even if you care to know more, it’s virtually impossible to know what they do or the decisions they make.
We don’t see our most educated or our best run for election. They are comfortable in their non-elected roles making good money without all the problems and headaches. But if the good ones aren’t wiling to step up then we are offered little choice. We have decades of poor choices and as such, poor outcomes.
It’s a vicious cycle. Good ones don’t step up. If any do, they usually don’t or won’t get elected. We need good people to run but they don’t and won’t because it is largely futile.
Thanks, Broken. Good message. It isn’t ironic that your comments apply equally and accurately to any other political individual or institution in Canada, whether non-profit, NGO or agency and to every municipal, provincial and federal government politician.
I do not think so . you state ‘good message’ and yet ramble on.
The reason why there’s low turn out is majority of Inuit live below the poverty line, and creation of Nunavut hasn’t change that and people feel Inuit organizations have failed them in a way did. It’s the same people that run decadence privileged Inuit that don’t understand people living in poverty, and challenges of the common people. They don’t understand single mother trying to raise her children with enough and good clothes, a child and or you living in over crowded housing that find a decent quiet room to study and do their homework, so they can get the education they want and need to escape the vicious cycle of poverty. A child that experiences abuse and who goes to school without anything to eat nutritious food for days on. The list continues. I’ll wait for the ignorant and racist comments to respond.
Manitok please run .. we need you !
you are probably the only one with guts to make changes ..
As the name says.
NTI needs a young leader with a vision and some fresh ideas, not a “has been”. NTI has constantly failed to innovate over and over again, and is providing next to zero support to properly implement the NLCA. Electing another retirement-aged leader will be the exact opposite of progress.
Oh how the saying goes…. “If you lack discipline and loyalty, and can BETRAY the very woman you’re supposed to PROTECT, then you’d have no problem doing the same to me.” – unknown.
Jeremy you should not be running for NTI president, time to retire. The actions you have taken do not reflect the integrity of Inuit
Many older people thinks they own nunavut because nunavut says our land. Alot of drop outs, uneducated individuals has all the jobs in nunavut. To me i really dont care much of these older generation trying for the top job. Water truck drivers, sewage truck drivers even local housing maintenance workers has many of these with bigger population and inuit communities like arviat. No education needed, and they make 2000 per pay. Because its their land, their decisions because it says nunavut our land
Socially maybe its time to give Nakashuk a chance. For change sake.
What I see is work experience and open social presence via Hockey Commentating as a valuable tool to practice social engagement as Publicly known contributions. His work experiences bring value as well from a Employment Experiences equal to other Candidates. Just sayin
Sincere Good Luck to all Candidates.
If only there was a track record of implementing rights and leadership around the Nunavut Agreement. Look at the planning commission and how much more NTI handles.
Do I need to announce my candidacy here? I’m running. Has the race started? Who’s in charge?
Shut NTI down or make it run like IRC in the NWT.
Manitok Thompson, PLEASE run for NTI president. Please we beg you. Jeremy has lost the right to represent Inuit by doing what he did. However, Manitok has good experience and must fix NTI’s grossly incompetent management. A whole lot of them have no grounding in leadership. They are “pretend Inuit”, people who do not practice Inuit values, elite southern educated privileged class. Millions of dollars spent on southern consulting companies. Since 2022, not a single house or major Infrastructure project built. Yet NTI publishes how many millions were received for this project or the other. Lots of Inuit training money going to waste paying for elite children to be sent to hockey schools in the south. Manitok, come serve Inuit and start looking at management compensation. Yet with millions in royalties, Inuit youth, single parents, have received zero dollars.
Manitok Thompson PLEASE run. Clean up NTI senior management who comprise of privileged Inuit who only came to Nunavut for the opportunity and are paying themselves hordes of money. Their children don’t even go to school in Nunavut. Go and fight for genuine Inuit who live in overcrowded housing, wallowing in poverty, with mental and physical abuse while NTI staff send their children to hockey schools using NTI post secondary education funds. The corruption and incompetence is alarming.
Lucassie and Peter Smith sound like bots. Are Russians interfering with NTI elections? Guess they want their $100 gift card too
Let’s be serious here
They need to abolish NTI
AND be like Makivvik
It already is. NTI is a private corporation. It’s literally in the name…
If u asked kivilliqmuit at the start of nunavut in 99, do you think you will have the same candidates 25 years later for NTI?
NTI needs a complete face-lift, NTI and Sakku need to form a strong partnership and invest in airline business. WPG to Kivalliq would be a good start.
They already have. It’s called Nunasi
Tell me why we don’t have NU own airline.
Why call it by-election when its happening on NTIs’ general election? By-election by definition is a special election. It is an election used to fill an office that has become vacant between general elections.
This is a problem in Nunavut; largest recycle depot in Canadian politics. Old bodies thinking there’re still fresh, not.
Lets vote in Jeremy again, just to see who he’s going to fire…