Makivik’s long-time VP, executive assistant contest resource development job

Makivik Corporation’s current vice-president of resource development, Johnny Peters, left, with his executive assistant Adamie Delisle Alaku, who is also a vice-president candidate. (PHOTO COURTESY OF MAKIVIK CORP)

Is Makivik Corp.’s resource development department ready for change?

Johnny Peters, first elected as Makivik’s vice-president of resource development in 1996, has overseen Makivik files on renewable resources, wildlife management and environmental protection.

And Peters, now 74, is running for a sixth term.

But he’ll face competition on election day, Jan. 16, from his own executive assistant, Adamie Delisle Alaku, who is active on a number of Makivik wildlife and environment files.

Originally from Salluit, Delisle Alaku studied pure sciences at Montreal’s CEGEP Marie-Victorin, but returned home to work for the Raglan mine as a human resource coordinator and open pit general foreman.

He has worked for Makivik for the last three years, where he represents the organization oh behalf of Nunavik Inuit on Raglan’s and Nunavik Nickel’s regional committees.

Fluent is English, French and Inuktitut, Delisle Alaku has also represented the organization on an international stage; at the 2012 Range State International Forum on polar bears in Moscow and at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species meeting hosted last year in Thailand.

In Quebec, Delisle Alaku presented at a parliamentary commission on the province’s bill 43 on mining; he’s also co-chair of the Ungava Caribou Aboriginal Roundtable.

Through this roundtable, Delisle Alaku hopes Makivik can continue to preserve and develop relations with others to ensure the protection of cultural activities and harvesting.

If elected, Delisle Alaku said he plans to stress good communication with the Kativik Regional Government and Nunavik’s landholding corporations issues regarding land-use and protected areas in Nunavik.

“Wildlife issues are conflict-ridden in Nunavik with surrounding laws to on-shore and off-shore from James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement & Nunavik Inuit Land Claims Agreements,” he said. “We need to assess and press our right to harvest country food free from government infringement.”

That also means reviewing the Nunavik Research Centre’s mandate regarding communication and collaboration with local hunters, he added.

Delisle Alaku has worked for Makivik’s current vice-president of resource development, Johnny Peters, since 2010, an experience he calls “a blessing.”

“I know I can help Nunavik with the best of my abilities; I want Nunavik beneficiaries to be proud and trust Makivik as its birthright corporation,” he said. “I want to bring unity throughout Nunavik by engaging them and implicating them.”

Peters did not return Nunatsiaq News’ request for an interview.

Nunavik beneficiaries can cast ballots at advance polls Jan. 9 at municipal or landholding corporation offices in all Nunavik communities from 9:00 to 5:00 pm.

On election day, polls will be open in those same locations from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 pm.