Cree NDP candidate promotes party platform in Abitibi-James Bay-Nunavik-Eeyou

We have the chance to play a leadership role on these issues and I want to continue that debate,” says Roméo Saganash, NDP candidate in Abitibi-James Bay-Nunavik-Eeyou . “I don’t think anyone’s against development, but there’s an obligation to do it right.”

Since Romeo Saganash announced March 31 that he would run the New Democratic Party in Abitibi-James Bay-Nunavik-Eeyou riding, the Cree lawyer has shot from relative obscurity to star candidate status in the federal election.

On May 2, Saganash hopes to use that star power to unseat incumbent Bloc Québécois MP Yvon Lévesque, who has held the federal riding since 2004.

That hope is fuelled even more by recent comments by Lévesque that “voters will no longer support the NDP now that the party is running an aboriginal candidate,” which set off calls for Lévesque to step out of the race.

Saganash, 49, is soft-spoken, but direct, as he lists his key election concerns during an interview from Val d’Or hotel room.

In addition to its tongue-tying name, the Abitibi-James Bay-Nunavik-Eeyou riding holds many challenges, he said, from managing its rich water and mineral resources to climate change and the future of aboriginal peoples who remain the majority in the riding’s northern region.

“We have the chance to play a leadership role on these issues and I want to continue that debate,” Saganash told Nunatsiaq News. “I don’t think anyone’s against development, but there’s an obligation to do it right.”

After spending the first six years of his life in the bush near Waswanwipi, Saganash went away to residential school, then to his post-secondary studies in Montreal, where he graduated with a law degree from the Université du Québec à Montreal in 1989.

Saganash, who has worked for the Grand Council of Crees since the early 1980s, was elected as deputy grand chief in 1990.

The years that followed were “crucial,” Saganash said, as he participated in the opposition to the Great Whale river hydroelectric project and the Charlottetown and Meech Lake accords.

“The reason I ran in 1990 was that the Cree needed a leader that could express themselves in French,” he said. “That was an important part of decision — then and now.”

Until he resigned to run for the NDP, Saganash remained with the Grand Council as their director of Quebec relations.

There, he was involved in discussions around the United Nations declaration on the rights of Indigenous people.

But after three decades with the Grand Council, Saganash decided that “it was a good time to contribute something else in my career.”

This is Saganash’s first time running for federal politics, although he has been approached to run by several parties over the last few years — apart from the Conservatives, he said.

“In Cree country, leadership is really important,” he said. “And I feel very comfortable with this party and its platform.”

Saganash said the NDP has always promoted Aboriginal rights. Its leader Jack Layton was the first to insist on an apology for residential school survivors – which came in 2008 – and Layton also sponsored the motion to endorse the declaration on the rights of Indigenous people in 2010.

“This will likely continue if I’m elected,” he said.

Saganash recently visited the Algonquin community of Lac Simon, where he asked residents what their biggest concerns were heading into this election.

“They told me housing, which is not surprising, because it’s the same issue for the Cree and the Inuit.”

Saganash is still finalizing his agenda for the four weeks left in the campaign, but he said he will visit Nunavik during that time, certainly with a trip to Kuujjuaq and hopefully to two other communities.

Travel continues to be an ongoing challenge for candidates in the 843,000 square kilometres that make up the northern riding, although Saganash said Elections Canada caps his budget at $70,000, about $20,000 higher than for the average Canadian riding.

Although he doesn’t want his aboriginal status to mark him during the campaign, Saganash believes it could stir up election interest in certain communities.

“I haven’t asked the Cree to vote for me because I’m a Cree,” he said. “I’m asking them to vote for me on the issues I stand for — our platform.”

“But hopefully, having an Inuk [Green Party candidate Johnny Kasudkuak] and a Cree in this election campaign will get people to come out and vote,” he said. “The single most important thing is to come out and vote. That’s democracy.”

Cree and Inuit communities hold about 13,000 potential votes, and could hold the power in an election, but turn-out from Cree and Inuit voters in past federal elections has been lacklustre.

In the 2008 federal election, the BQ’s Lévesque won with nearly 40 per cent of the vote, mostly from the southern portion of the riding.

The NDP, meanwhile, finished fourth, with 8.2 per cent of the vote.