Liberal candidate Tootoo dumps on Montreal Tory for remarks about Nunavut

Hunter Tootoo, the Liberal candidate for Nunavut, is attacking remarks made by Conservative Richard Sagala, a candidate in the Montreal riding of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount. (FILE PHOTO)

(Updated Oct. 6, 2:25 p.m.)

Hunter Tootoo, the Liberal candidate for Nunavut, said Oct. 6 that Conservative leader Stephen Harper must “denounce” remarks about Nunavut that a Conservative candidate in Montreal made during a recent all-candidates debate.

The candidate, Montreal business person Richard Sagala, is running for the Conservatives in the new west Montreal seat of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount.

He made the imputed remarks during a rambling response to a question from a woman in the audience about an inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women.

Sagala said there are “dark chapters” in Canadian history and that there may be lessons to be learned from the recent report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

“So, now we had this commission of Truth and Reconciliation. At the moment we have to be humble and study those 94 recommendations, and try to learn from it,” Sagala said.

After criticizing past governments for dealing with Aboriginal issues by “throwing money at it” and sending “more people to talk to them,” he veered off into remarks about Nunavut.

“Nunavut is not that great an experience. Just to tell you, the violence there is comparable to South Africa. Imagine, 1,000 times more than in Canada. You know, we tried to do some delegation of power to them and this is what happened,” Sagala said.

After that, he said the government should talk to “native leaders” in Australia and New Zealand to learn from their experiences.

Sagala made his remarks at an all candidates event Oct. 1 at Lower Canada College, an English language private school in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.

It’s not clear who recorded them, but Tootoo’s Liberal campaign posted them in a Soundcloud audio track.

And in his Oct. 6 statement, Tootoo said Sagala’s remarks are “disgusting.”

“It’s hard to listen to the comments without concluding they are fueled by anything other than prejudice and ignorance. To somehow link missing and murdered Indigenous women to Nunavut’s founding, to question Nunavut’s very existence, to repeatedly refer to Indigenous peoples as ‘them,’ frankly it’s disgusting,” Tootoo said.

In a statement issued by the Conservative party about 20 minutes after this story was published online, Sagala clarified his remarks about Nunavut.

“I want to clarify my remarks from last Thursday. I fully support the delegation of authority in Nunavut announced by the Conservative government. In addition, the Conservatives have invested more in infrastructure, healthcare, education , training and economic development than any other government in Canadian history. We were the first government to develop a Northern Strategy that northerners can make choices that affect their lives,” Sagala said in statement posted on his Facebook page.

Richard Sagala is contesting the newly-redrawn NDG-Westmount seat for the Conservatives against Liberal Marc Garneau, the incumbent MP for the old seat of Westmount—Ville-Marie.

Garneau’s most serious challenger is considered to be James Hughes, a popular community organizer who is running for the New Democrats.

The Bloc Québécois, the Green party, the Marxist Leninists and an independent are also running for the seat.