Justin Trudeau to visit Iqaluit Jan. 12, Jan. 13

National Liberal leader Justin Trudeau. (WIKIMEDIA COMMONS IMAGE)

Justin Trudeau will make his first visit to Nunavut as federal Liberal leader next month on a New Year’s tour of the three northern territories.

Michel Potvin, the president of the Nunavut Liberal Association, said Trudeau is scheduled to visit Iqaluit Jan. 12 and Jan. 13, his only Nunavut stop.

Trudeau is the third federal party leader to visit the territory within the last year, following visits from Prime Minister Stephen Harper last August, and New Democratic Party leader Thomas Mulcair last September.

Three federal Liberal MPs also visited Nunavut last summer: MPs John McKay, Carolyn Bennett and Judy Sgro stopped last June in Rankin Inlet, Igloolik and Iqaluit, where they hosted a public town hall meeting.

Potvin said the association is still working on the details of Trudeau’s visit. The association plans to release a schedule of the leader’s activities in Iqaluit by early next week.

The Liberal leader’s visit will likely attempt to build on the party’s popularity throughout most of 2014, as Canadians prepare to head to the polls again in 2015, when an election must be held by Oct. 19.

A December poll prepared by EKOS Research and the Angus Reid Institute shows the federal Liberal party has 35 per cent support among Canadians, with the Conservatives sitting at 32 per cent and the NDP at 20 per cent.

An aggregate of Canadian opinion polls compiled at threehundredeight.com has the Liberals at 35 per cent, the Conservatives at 32 per cent and the NDP at 21 per cent.

Right now, the Liberal party holds only 35 seats in the House of Commons, well behind the NDP’s 96 seats and the 163 held by the Conservatives.

While next month will mark his first visit to Nunavut as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, Justin Trudeau made several visits north with his brothers and his father, Pierre. Here is Justin, standing just to the right of Peter Ittinuar, then the Liberal MP for Nunatsiaq, in 1983 while on a visit to Rankin Inlet. With him are his brothers, the late Michel Trudeau and Alexandre Trudeau. (FILE PHOTO)