Incumbent takes a territorial focus; challenger concerned about day-to-day needs in riding

The two candidates facing off in Amittuq riding were both born in camps outside Igloolik, which, with Hall Beach, makes up the entire population of the riding.

But while incumbent Louis Tapardjuk has focused on the larger issues facing Nunavut, his opponent, Joanna Haulli Quassa, wants to pay more attention to the day-to-day needs of her constituents.

"I'm running because I feel that both Hall Beach and Igloolik are not being advocated for or supported as they should be," says Haulli Quassa.

If elected, she would work on getting more programs for young people in the community, including training in trades.

"I know there is training for mining and heavy-equipment operation, but we can offer far more options than those in the community.

"We need something the kids can look forward to."

Right now, she says, it's like they graduate from high school and we just say to them, "you're on your own."

Haulli Quassa was born on the land in a camp at Kapuivik, and except for three years in Iqaluit, has lived and worked in Igloolik ever since.

A graduate of the Nunavut Teacher Education Program, she taught for nine years and spent three years producing Inuktitut teaching materials.

For the past seven years she has worked with the Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth as an IQ coordinator, director of community programs, director of policy and planning, and manager of heritage.

Haulli Quassa would also take up the fight to get a doctor stationed in Igloolik, which has a population of more than 1,500. Right now, a doctor visits every six weeks, and she says they're usually fully booked even before their arrival

Lack of a doctor, she says, means people too often have to be medevaced to Iqaluit or beyond for medical care. Some weeks, she says, a person is flown out of Igloolik almost every day.

Haulli Quassa would also encourage Igloolik and Hall Beach (population 650) to establish community committees to coordinate responses to social needs.

She says representatives from various agencies in the communities, including the health centre, the RCMP, social workers, and the hamlet council, could work together.

Haulli Quassa has not held elected office before, but says she has dealt with enough politicians, and worked her way through enough issues, that "I feel I'm ready to take on whatever comes."

She is just finishing a four-year term as Nunavut representative on a national RCMP commission on aboriginal issues.

Tapardjuk wasn't born "on the land," exactly, but in an igloo on the sea ice off Aggu Bay, near Igloolik.

As a survivor of the residential school at Chesterfield Inlet, Tapardjuk says he has always wanted to help Inuit regain control over their own society, language, culture and identity.

He served as president of the Baffin Regional (now Qikiqtani) Inuit Association and on the board of the Tungavik Federation of Nunavut, where he helped negotiate the Nunavut land claims agreement.

He is also a former mayor of Igloolik.

Elected to the Nunavut legislature in 2004, Tapardjuk served as minister of CLEY throughout the government's last term. During other periods he served as finance minister, chair of the Financial Management Board, and held responsibility for the Nuna­vut Liquor Commission, the Crown Agency Council, and Sport Nunavut.

He is most proud, he says, of getting Nunavut's Official Languages Act passed, and the Inuit Language Protection Act. "Especially for the community of Igloolik, where the language is still strong and deserves protection."

Passing the Nunavut Education Act was also important, says Tapardjuk, and in the next government, "I would like the Inuit to get control of the delivery of social services."

The current child protection law is inherited from the Northwest Territories.

"So many of the social ills we are all aware of," are the result of being "forced to follow rules not of our own making," Tapardjuk said.

And while the oceans are a federal jurisdiction, Tapardjuk hopes he can get the Canadian government to provide some help in Hall Beach to deal with extensive erosion along the beach.

"We need to get some funding to build a breakwater, like other communities have," he says.

In the eight years since the creation of Nunavut, says Tapardjuk,

"I think we've accomplished quite a bit."

"We have a lot of challenges ahead of us, and I'd like to be a part of meeting them," he adds. "That's why I'm running."