NIC to tour Canada to promote Nunavut

TODD PHILLIPS

Two days before Christmas, the federal commission entrusted with designing Nunavut’s government stuffed a big thick book into Ron Irwin’s Christmas stocking.

Now the federal minister of Indian affairs and northern development can read all about how the people of Nunavut want their government to look.

The Nunavut Implementation Commission’s latest report has the tricky “political” recommendations that weren’t included in the Footprints 2 report.

The report, “Nunavut’s Legislature, Premier and First Election” has recommendations on how many MLAs Nunavut’s first government should have, when the first election should be held, and how the premier should be picked.

And most important, perhaps, there is a recommendation that says there should be as many Joan Amagoalik’s as John Amagoalik’s filling the seats of Nunavut’s legislative assembly.

Southern tour

The NIC’s work will be discussed at the next Nunavut leaders meeting being held next month in Cambridge Bay.

After that, some members of the commission are planning to tour southern Canada to teach people about Nunavut.

“In the next 12 months, we want to visit all parts of Canada, the west coast, the prairies, central Canada and the Maritimes,” John Amagoalik, the NIC’s chief commissioner told reporters at a Dec. 23 news conference.

After their tour, the commissioners will likely shift their focus to Ottawa, where they will have to do some “heavy lobbying,” Amagoalik said.

Gender parity backed

The commission is strongly backing a two-member constituency model that would allow for voters in each constituency to elect one man and one woman to represent them.

The NIC’s gender parity plan was hotly debated at a Nunavut leaders meeting in Iqaluit last November. NIC chief commissioner John Amagoalik held an informal poll and found that 72 per cent of the leaders around the table backed the plan.

That gave the commission the mandate it needed to recommend to Ottawa, the GNWT and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. that the model be adopted for Nunavut’s first assembly.

Although Irwin once said he personally doesn’t like the gender parity plan, he told reporters in Iqaluit in November that he’d changed his mind and now supports it. But Irwin said he might have a harder time convincing his cabinet colleagues.

Amagoalik said Irwin can tell his fellow cabinet members that gender parity was decided by the people of Nunavut.

“If the people of Nunavut have decided this, I don’t know how they can really prevent it because it fits within the constitution and the people up here want it. How can they say no?”

But the Liberal MP representing Nunavut might not be too keen on lobbying his colleagues to support gender parity.

Nunatsiaq MP Jack Anawak spoke out against the plan at the November meeting.

“If he wants to fight this to the bitter end it could cause real problems, but I hope that’s not the case,” Amagoalik said.

After Amagoalik had conducted his straw poll, Anawak also questioned whether the group gathered in Iqaluit that voted to back gender parity was really representative of Nunavut’s elected leadership.

“Mr. Anawak suggested that it was not a leaders meeting. But I think Jose Kusugak is a leader. I think Goo Arlooktoo is a leader. I think Jack Anawak is a leader. I think it was a leaders’ meeting,” Amagoalik said.

What’s in the reports?

* The commission recommends that there be either 20 or 22 MLAs in Nunavut’s first assembly. If the people of Sanikiluaq finally get their wish for better representation within Nunavut, they may be granted not one ­ but two MLAs.

* Nunavut’s first premier will be picked the same way as the premier is now picked in the NWT. After the election, the MLAs will decide among themselves who they want the premier to be. The commission wants the Nunavut Act changed so that future Nunavut governments can change the system to allow for the direct election of a premier.

* The election to pick the first batch of MLAs for Nunavut should take place in February 1999 to allow time for the assembly to meet before Nunavut’s birth in April.

* The NIC also wants the federal government to introduce a single bill in the House of Commons early in 1997 to make all necessary changes to the Nunavut Act.

If the Nunavut Act is reopened, it will have to be debated again, and some MPs might argue that other changes need to be made.

Amagoalik says he’s aware of that possibility, but feels that a Liberal majority government would be able to usher the bill through the House of Commons.

“The government of the last three years has had the most on-hand involvement in this project. So if it’s a majority Liberal government, then we expect a lot less problems.”

The Nunavut Implementation Commission is a federally-appointed body set up to advise Ottawa, the GNWT, and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. on the make up and design of the Nunavut government.