Nine hopefuls vie to become High Arctic’s MLA

Isaac Shooyook is seeking a second term as MLA for Quttiktuq. But he faces a crowded race, with eight other candidates campaigning to represent the High Arctic riding in Nunavut’s Oct. 30 territorial election. (FILE PHOTO)

David Akeeagok, a veteran civil servant with the Government of Nunavut, visits Grise Fiord earlier this month as part of his campaign to become the next MLA for Quttiktuq. (PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVID AKEEAGOK)

Votes in Nunavut’s Quttiktuq riding will see the most crowded race this territorial election, with nine candidates vying to represent the High Arctic communities of Arctic Bay, Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay.

Incumbent Isaac Shooyook hopes to hold on to his seat in the legislature for a second term after voters head to the polls on Oct. 30.

The 78-year-old elder from Arctic Bay has been a vocal proponent for ensuring Inuit culture is better reflected in Nunavut’s public government. In March 2015, he staged a one-person walkout of the legislature to protest, as he put it, how “there is flowery language about incorporating traditional Inuit knowledge,” yet often the government “refuses to implement this knowledge.”

Shooyook has repeatedly taken issue with Nunavut’s Child and Family Services Act, complaining that many Inuit struggle to understand the law because there is no Inuktitut version of it.

He has also raised concerns about the high number of Nunavut children raised in foster care, and Shooyook has accused Nunavut’s social workers of at times separating children from their parents without explanation. “We are going to see a disintegration of the family under the current system,” he has warned.

Shooyook has also called for changes to Nunavut’s child protection laws, to allow parents to use physical discipline on children, saying that this is in keeping with Inuit traditions.

He later clarified he was defending slapping young children on the hands and that he didn’t want children to be abused.

The most prominent contender for Shooyook’s job is David Akeeagok, who has held some of the most powerful unelected jobs within the Nunavut government.

For several years he served as the territorial government’s boss of all bosses, as the deputy minister of executive and intergovernmental affairs. He also served two stints as the deputy minister of environment, and as Nunavut’s chief negotiator for devolution.

“I’ve been fortunate to be in key government positions. And I can utilize that and help the very people I had to leave behind to gain that experience,” he told Nunatsiaq News. “Now I can be their voice and represent them.”

Akeeagok, who has lived in Iqaluit for many years, but hails from Grise Fiord, says that the exorbitant cost of airfare for High Arctic communities would be a priority for him to address as MLA. “I have seven children and three grandchildren—trying to fly up to visit family, I have to decide whether to get a loan or not,” he said. “That’s nothing new for here, but that’s unacceptable.

“A regular flight, if we took it from Grise Fiord to Ottawa right now, it’s going to cost you $10,000.”

Given the small populations of High Arctic communities, the reality is that lower airfares would have to be created through some kind of government subsidy, said Akeeagok.

Asked how he’d find this money, given the Nunavut government’s tight finances, he said that increased use of telehealth services could free up funds now spent on medical travel. “It takes someone from Grise Fiord over a week, sometimes two weeks, to go and spend 10 minutes of a doctor’s time. And that’s a huge cost.”

The crippling cost of transportation to the High Arctic has long been a sore point for the region’s residents, and talk of a High Arctic transportation strategy of some kind predates the creation of Nunavut.

In 2016, when Shooyook pressed Premier Peter Taptuna on the matter in the legislature, Taptuna responded that any offsetting of High Arctic transportation costs would depend on new federal money, which so far has not materialized.

Offsetting airfares could also help lure tourists to High Arctic communities, said Akeeagok. As things stand, the region’s two national parks barely receive any visitors, given how prohibitively expensive it is to reach them.

And he says the government could consider creating a program to take advantage of the empty cargo holds on south-bound flights, to help distribute surplus country food from High Arctic communities to other Nunavut communities in need.

Akeeagok said his other priorities include working to recruit more teaching talent in the territory, and, like Shooyook, pushing to ensure that Nunavut’s laws better reflect Inuit culture. “I think we need to do some form of parallel review, where we should hire Inuit who have the Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit knowledge—hire them and let them focus on certain legislation to improve it,” he said.

Another would-be-MLA is Kataisee Attagutsiak, who is currently Arctic Bay’s representative on the Qulliit Nunavut Status of Women Council. Attagutsiak is also an artist whose painting of a mythical Inuk mermaid graced the cover of Northwestel’s Nunavut phone book in 2015.

Other candidates running for the Quttiktuq seat are Mishak Allurut, Leo Eecherk, Gary Kalluk, Mavis Manik, Rachel A. Qitsualik-Tinsley and Andrew Taqtu.

Quttiktuq has seen a surge of interest from candidates this year compared to the 2013 and 2008 elections, when the riding saw races between just two candidates.

However, earlier elections saw bigger pools of candidates, with eight candidates vying in a byelection held in 2000 after the riding’s seat was vacated by Levi Barnabas, following a sexual assault conviction.