BQ candidate Yvon Lévesque seeks Nunavik support

Nunavik’s current MP Yvon Lévesque wants a fourth term as MP for the Abitibi-James Bay-Nunavik-Eeyou riding. Lévesque says he has a good track-record on issues which are important to Inuit. (BLOC QUEBECOIS PHOTO)

Nunavik’s incumbent MP, Yvon Lévesque, says he’s the North’s biggest defender in Parliament – and that’s why Nunavimmiut should help re-elect him on May 2.

The Bloc Québécois member for Abitibi-James Bay-Nunavik-Eeyou is seeking his fourth mandate as MP for the riding in the May 2 federal election.

But Lévesque’s campaign got off to a rocky start, at least from the perspective of many in Nunavik, when he announced he wouldn’t be campaigning in the region.

Lévesque then made a comment last month about Roméo Saganash, who is the riding’s New Democratic Party candidate.

A Quebec newspaper quoted Lévesque as saying that “some voters will no longer support the NDP now that the party is running an Aboriginal candidate.”

Lévesque told Nunatsiaq News that his comment was taken out of context after the journalist asked him if he feared losing votes to the well-known Cree leader – to which he says he answered “no.”

“[The journalist] asked me if I meant that because he’s an Aboriginal candidate, people won’t vote for the NDP,” Lévesque said, “and I said maybe, but that it would be an insignificant amount.”

Lévesque said the NDP have distorted and misused the comment; NDP leader Jack Layton even brought it up during the leaders’ French-language debate April 13.

“I’ve apologized,” Lévesque said. “I’ve done a lot of work for Aboriginal communities in my riding and, contrary to what Jack Layton says, I am very close to [these constituents].”

Lévesque said he recently appeared at a meeting in Saganash’s home community of Waswanipi, where he and Saganash spoke for the first time since the incident and made plans “to have a coffee together” soon.

Lévesque has yet to meet the Green Party candidate Johnny Kasudluak from Inukjuak.

Lévesque can’t recall his last visit to Nunavik — he believes it was last summer — but he says that he tries to visit the region once a year.

But he said a trip to Nunavik during the campaign would cost him $16,000 from his $90,000 budget.

“We don’t really have the budget,” he said. “I’m at the mercy of the weather. And if I do one village, I have to do the others.”

Although he has not visited Nunavik often, Lévesque, a former electrician and union negotiator, maintains he has championed issues that count in Inuit communities since he was first elected in 2004.

“The first demand I made was for housing in Nunavik,” Lévesque said. “It’s not 340 houses that Nunavik needs to deal with the shortage — it’s more like 1,000. We’ll continue to ask for help.”

Lévesque said he continues to voice that concern in the House of Commons, and added there are many ways in which the federal government can help pay for more housing.

“Rather than spending billions to fight a war in another country, the federal government should spend a few million to send an army ship
[to Nunavik] and bring the materials directly to those villages so they can construct new homes,” said Lévesque during a phone interview from Matagami where he was campaigning.

Lévesque said that, apart from Liberal Yukon MP Larry Bagnell, the Bloc Québecois has been the only party to speak out against the Conservatives’ new Nutrition North program.

The new scheme offers subsidies on a restricted list of healthy foods, eliminates the subsidized food’s mandatory entry point, Lévesque’s home base of Val d’Or, and allows retailers to negotiate their own freight rates with airlines.

Last December, Lévesque recommended a two-year moratorium on the program’s implementation.

“We need to re-evaluate the program and ensure that it will benefit Northerners more than food mail program,” he said.

Nutrition North was implemented April 1, although the program has been scaled back until October 2012 to allow retailers to stock up on non-perishable foods.

“Prices keep going up,” Lévesque said, mentioning a 20-kilogram bag of flour selling for $200 in some Nunavut communities.

“The purpose of the program is to make nutritious food affordable,” he said. “With the changes in the price of gas, it’s the retailer and consumer picking up these fees.”

Lévesque said the new program also threatens to slow development across the North, making it less viable for mining and exploration companies.

Among his other campaign pledges, he’s proposing a tax credit of up to $8,000 on the salaries of new post-secondary graduates.

Lévesque also wants to lower the number of work hours, now 910, which it takes before someone can access employment insurance – a measure he believes will help youth better qualify for the program.

At least four candidates in the Abitibi-James Bay-Nunavik-Eeyou riding are expected to participate in a live debate scheduled April 19 in Val d’Or.

About 10 per cent of Nunavik voters cast ballots for the BQ in the 2008 federal election.

Lévesque won, receiving nearly 40 per cent of the vote, mainly in the more heavily-populated areas of the riding.