Saganash of the NDP pulls off win in Nunavik riding

Romeo Saganash will represent Nunavik again in Parliament, thanks to his Oct. 19 win over the Liberals. (FILE PHOTO)

Romeo Saganash held onto Quebec’s northernmost riding Oct. 19, but it was a close race as voters re-elected the popular New Democratic party MP to a second term in Abitibi-James Bay-Nunavik-Eeyou.

While most riding races see a clear winner pull away at some point, the battle for the seat, which includes Nunavik, remained tight right until Saganash’s victory was declared in the early hours of Oct. 20.

Liberal party candidate Pierre Dufour led the polls through the first few hours of the evening, then Saganash took a later lead, finishing the night with 12,788 votes, or 37 per cent of the ballots cast.

Dufour ended with 11,084 votes or 32.1 per cent of the vote.

The Bloc Québécois candidate Luc Ferland, a former provincial MNA in the region, came in third, followed by Conservative candidate Steven Hébert.

Saganash was first elected in the 2011 federal election, coming in on Quebec’s “orange wave” to beat out the incumbent BQ candidate with 44 per cent of the vote.

During his first term in office, Saganash served as NDP critic for international development and natural resources — and before this federal campaign got underway, he served as the NDP’s deputy critic for intergovernmental Aboriginal affairs.

Saganash said his contact with communities in the sprawling Abitibi-James Bay-Nunavik-Eeyou riding, through social media and in-person visits, and focus on Indigenous issues won — and kept — the trust of constituents in Nunavik.

Saganash said he’s also proud of the role that the NDP played in triggering the Auditor General of Canada’s audit of the Nutrition North Canada program, which last year found the program did not ensure that northern retailers were passing on the full subsidy.

Born in Waswanipi, Saganash went on to become the first Cree in Quebec to earn a Bachelor of Law degree. He served as deputy grand chief of the Grand Council of the Crees in the early 1990s — the same organization that endorsed him Oct. 19.

Through his work on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Saganash has advocated for many of the recommendations that came from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, some before they were even made.

Last year, Saganash sponsored private member’s Bill C-641, which would have seen the declaration enshrined into Canadian law, although it was voted down this past May.

“Again, if elected as government, you can be sure that I’ll bring this back,” he told Nunatsiaq News last month in a pre-election interview. “So many Indigenous people were involved in the drafting of this declaration; it took 23 years to achieve.”

A former residential school student, Saganash knows too well the legacy that schooling system left; the MP took a three-month leave in October 2012 to deal with alcoholism, returning to work in January 2013.