Nunavik MP promises more presence in the region

Nunavik MP Romeo Saganash, far right, meets with Makivik Corp. and other regional leaders in Kuujjuaq earlier this month in the Makivik board room where he announced he would open a constituency office in Kuujjuaq. (PHOTO COURTESY OF ROMEO SAGANASH)

Nunavimmiut will be able to stay in better contact with their member of Parliament once he opens a constituency office in Kuujjuaq later this year.

Abitibi-James Bay-Nunavik-Eeyou MP Romeo Saganash announced earlier this month his plans to open a riding office in the region’s largest community – the first time a federal (or provincial) representative will have a permanent presence in Nunavik.

Saganash said the office will keep him in regular contact with the region and Quebec’s Inuit – one of many groups who inhabit the vast riding.

“My riding is so diversified,” Saganash told Nunatsiaq News. “But I think it’s important that we look at the North, not just as a place of resource development, but also for the new geo-political realities that will come with climate change.”

Saganash has yet to secure office space in Kuujjuaq, and said he recognizes that will be challenge — but he hopes to open an office by the summer of 2012.

The office would be staffed by an Inuktitut-speaking constituency assistant, he said.

Saganash announced that move during a March 15 visit to Kuujjuaq, his first since he was elected as MP in May 2011.

Saganash, who serves as the New Democratic Party’s natural resources critic, met with Makivik Corp. executives and helped inaugurate the organization’s new Kuujjuaq-based Nunavik Research Centre.

The event provided Sagansh with a rare chance to meet with his most northerly constituents, in the second largest riding in Canada.

The size of the riding would be a challenge for any politician, let alone for Saganash during the five months he spent campaigning to lead the federal NDP this past winter.

Starting in September, 2011, only months into his new role as MP, Saganash criss-crossed the country in a bid to take the job left vacant by the death of party leader Jack Layton.

A lack of funds and poor health forced Saganash to drop out of the NDP leadership race in February.

But Saganash says he has no regrets — his campaign provided an invaluable boost to his profile.

“I would have never been able to visit Canada as I did with this race,” he said. “I think people have really noticed me now, which is a good thing in politics.”

While Saganash may not be leading the party, the man he threw his support behind, Thomas Mulcair, did take the leadership position this past March 24.

Now, Saganash says the party can get back to putting up a good fight in Ottawa as official opposition.

But Saganash realizes he has his own fight to wage at home.

Many of the calls he receives from constituents reflect concerns about the rapid pace of chance in the region, much of it linked to Quebec’s Plan Nord.

The riding office has sent surveys out to each of the constituency’s households in recent months to gauge regional priorities.

“The environment, the economy and resource development are all on equal footing,” Saganash said of the response.

His aboriginal constituents say they want their lands protected, he said. And while they support some development, they want to ensure that they are included in the conversation.

“The Plan Nord needs to adjust itself to the constitutional agreement that is in place, which in the case of the Cree and the Inuit, is the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement,” said Saganash, a former Cree leader and lawyer.

“In Nunavik, that means any project has to go through that process where Inuit participate and have a say,” he said. “That’s how we monitor development and how we influence what’s going on in the North.”

Saganash said he would also help Nunavik try to secure an additional 500 housing units that the region says the federal government should fund.

Since 2010, Nunavik’s leaders have pegged the number of additional units needed to relieve the housing crunch in the region at 1,000 – a need that continues to grow.

So when Quebec’s Plan Nord announced 300 new social housing units earlier this year — plus help to build 200 private homes — the province approached Ottawa to come up with another 500 units.

But Ottawa has since told Nunavik that it has already met its housing obligations to the region until 2015.

“Inuit leadership needs to take the high road on this one,” Saganash said, “and I’ll will try and assist them to achieve that housing.”