Four way race in Nunavut

DWANE WILKIN

­A month ago they were strangers, sharing lunch in Montreal at a meeting of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.’s finance committee.

Today they are rival political candidates, stumping for the privilege of representing Nunavut in the House of Commons.

Last-minute plane reservations and hastily scheduled appearances were the order of the day as Liberal party candidate Nancy Karetak-Lindell, the Progressive Conservative party’s Okalik Eegeesiak and Hunter Tootoo of the New Democratic Party raced to press the flesh in as many communities as possible this week.

Late on Tuesday, John Turner of Whale Cove announced he would run on the Reform Party platform.

A mother of four who helps run a family-owned lumber business in Arviat, Karetak-Lindell, 39, was chosen to run on the Liberal ticket ten days ago after winning the nomination over Iqaluit’s own Eva Adams-Klassen.

Eegeesiak, 35, a single mother on leave from NTI’s executive-training program, was acclaimed as the Progressive Conservative candidate for Nunavut.

No hot issues?

With the possible exception of gun-control and gender parity for the new Nunavut legislature, there have been few issues to date that promise to dominate the campaign. Even the Conservative party’s plan to dismantle the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development has received little attention.

Tootoo, a 33-year-old corporate-control officer with the financial management board in Rankin Inlet, has been telling voters that he alone is fit to represent Nunavut under the next government.

If a Liberal government is returned to power, Tootoo says, the necessary financing for Nunavut may not be forthcoming. “Already the federal government is saying they don’t have the money for this decentralized model they all endorsed,” he said. “If they get a Liberal MP they’ll be able to run that through without a fight from anyone in Nunavut.”

Karetak-Lindell, recently elected secretary-treasurer of the Kivalliq Inuit Association, would not say where she stands on the issue of the Nunavut Implementation Commission’s gender-parity proposal. “I could be very selfish and say I don’t need it,” she said coyly. “My biggest hope is that people vote knowing all the facts.”

Eegeesiak supports gender parity, but believes the real issues for Nunavut are going to be in the area of education, training and employment.

Liberals broke promises

A former manager of the Canada Employment Centre in Iqaluit, Eegeesiak helped write Nunavut’s unified human-resources development strategy. She is critical of the Liberal government’s obsession with deficit reduction, blaming it for deep cuts to health care and education budgets in the North, despite promises contained in the Liberal party’s infamous Red Book.

“Teachers,” she said, “can’t afford to live up here anymore.”

While Conservative party leader Jean Charest’s vow to repeal Canada’s Firearms Act will figure prominently in Eegeesiak’s pitch to Inuit hunters over the next two weeks, Karetak-Lindell can expect to spend at least part of her time defending the government’s new gun-control legislation.

“I know that that’s a very sensitive issue right now,” Karetak-Lindell said.

Daughter of a retired RCMP special constable and a lay-minister with the Glad Tidings Church in Arviat, the former hamlet councillor said a Liberal MP in Ottawa is Nunavut’s best option.

“The federal government is still going to play a large part in the creation on Nunavut, that’s where the money’s coming from,” she says. “An MP for the government in power is what residents of Nunavut need.”

Reform enters race

John Turner, 46, a journeyman plumber and a northerner since 1986, will stand for election on the Reform party platform. Last to enter the race, Turner’s own campaign was grounded temporarily this week by a snowstorm, but he intended to visit as many communities as possible.

As MP for Nunavut, Turner said he’d work to ensure a smooth division of the Northwest Territories in 1999.

While polls conducted in the South suggest the Liberals will be returned to power, Eegeesiak predicted that Tory support on June 2 will be enough to constitute a relevant voice of opposition in Ottawa once again.

“We’ll have a lot more seats than we have now,” says Eegeesiak, a new party member who admits her only link to the Tories prior to her nomination was that she voted Conservative in the 1993 federal election.

If the election campaign lacks the sparkle of fresh ideas, at least voters may be spared the spectacle of egos clashing.

“We had a very nice lunch together,” recalls Karetak-Lindell of her recent meeting with Eegeesiak. “Just because we’re running against each other doesn’t mean we couldn’t work together in another capacity.”