With CBC Nunavut radio debate looming, Aglukkaq releases platform

Nunavut’s three major party candidates — Leona Aglukkaq of the Conservatives, Hunter Tootoo of the Liberals, and Jack Anawak of the NDP — at a candidates forum Sept. 24 in Iqaluit organized by the Baffin Regional Chamber of Commerce. On Oct. 13, starting at 7 p.m. eastern, the three electoral hopefuls will take part in a three-hour forum in Iqaluit that CBC Nunavut will broadcast live. (FILE PHOTO)

Three days after Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s campaign visit to Iqaluit, the incumbent Conservative candidate for Nunavut, Leona Aglukkaq, released a two-page summary of her party’s Nunavut platform, promising lower taxes, a lower cost-of-living and an Ottawa-Nunavut devolution deal within four years.

“I am proud our Conservative government has made a firm commitment about devolution for Nunavut in an accelerated time-frame of four years. Devolution is not just about economic success, it’s about giving Nunavummiut more control over our own future,” Aglukkaq said Oct. 13 in a statement.

Later on Oct. 13, CBC Nunavut will host a three-hour all-candidates’ forum and live radio broadcast from Iqaluit’s Anglican Parish Hall. It’s set to start at 7 p.m. eastern time and run until 10 p.m. The first 90 minutes of the forum are to be held in Inuktitut and the last 90 minutes in English.

CBC said on its website that Aglukkaq, along with Jack Anawak of the New Democrats and Hunter Tootoo of the Liberals will attend.

In her platform summary, Aglukkaq repeated numerous promises the Conservatives have made in Nunavut since the federal election campaign began this past Aug. 2.

The lengthy list includes promises such as:

• maintaining the Universal Child Care Benefit, which dished out cheques across the country this past July to parents of children under the age six (worth nearly $2,000 a year,) and to parents of children aged six to 17 (worth about $700 a year;)

• conducting a “comprehensive review” of the Northern Residents Deduction, but no proposed increase yet;

• providing “increased funding” for Nutrition North Canada and implementation of a previously announced point-of-sale system that reveals the value of subsidy applied to each purchase;

• letting Canadian Rangers keep their old Lee-Enfield rifles when new rifles are introduced, and increase the size of the Junior Rangers to 5,000 members;

• ensuring community-based suicide prevention programs become the key focus of the Canadian Mental Health Commission;

• supporting Inuit languages and culture in line with themes outlined in the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission;

• launching an action plan on family violence and violent crimes against women and girls;

• building a “Franklin Centre” in Gjoa Haven; and,

• expanding internet access by funding high quality backbone networks based on fibre-optic cable or satellite.

Aglukkaq’s statement also boasted about the Conservatives having spent $650 million on housing in Nunavut since 2008 and that, if re-elected, the Conservatives would spend at least $400 million more on “much needed infrastructure investments.”

Also on Oct. 13, the NDP national leader, Thomas Mulcair, issued responses to election platform questionnaires that Nunavut Premier Peter Taptuna had sent to the major party leaders earlier in the campaign.

In those letters, he repeated a promise to “fix and expand” the Nutrition North Canada program, a promise his party has earlier priced at $32 million over four years.

To a question from Taptuna on devolution, Mulcair said an NDP government would “move quickly on negotiations on a devolution agreement for Nunavut that would provide local peoples with great democratic control of their land and a greater share of the benefits from their natural resources.”

Mulcair also said the NDP would negotiate a better Nunavut-Canada language agreement and that an “NDP government would work with Nunavut to establish mechanisms, including a heritage centre, to preserve and convey its unique heritage and culture.”

He also promised $54 million in new funding over four years for infrastructure and $450 million over 20 years for local infrastructure, as well as $200 million for northern roads, bridges and ports.

In addition, he repeated an earlier promise to spend $100 million to help communities move from diesel to cleaner forms of power generation.

Mulcair promised to meet with the territories and the provinces twice a year on climate change and move quickly to create a national climate change plan by this December.

As for the Liberals, their national leader, Justin Trudeau, when in Iqaluit Oct. 10, repeated a promise that the Yukon Liberal candidate Larry Bagnell had made earlier: spend $40 million more on Nutrition North Canada and fix the program’s problems.

And he repeated another promise to increase the Northern Residents Deduction by 33 per cent to $22 per day.

That would allow an individual tax-filer living in a self-contained dwelling unit to deduct up to $8,000 from their taxable income, which would give northern tax-filers a bigger income tax refund.

He also promised to index the benefit to the cost of living, a promise that Mulcair also made.

But no Nunavut candidate has talked about the vacation travel portion of the Northern Residents Deduction.

Under it, northern workers who receive vacation travel assistance may claim the cost of a flight to the nearest southern centre, along with other travel expenses.

But that benefit is not available to workers, mostly lower income people in the private sector, who do not receive VTAs.

Éric Grenier’s Canada 308 poll aggregator, which combines and analyzes data from all major Canadian public opinion polls, estimates that if an election were held as of Oct. 12, the Liberal party would win 34.2 per cent of the popular vote, followed by the Conservatives at 31.7 per cent and the NDP at 23.4 per cent.

That would likely give the Liberals 134 seats, enough to form a minority government, with 119 seats going to the Conservatives and 80 to the NDP, Grenier’s aggregator estimates.