Returning officer announces Iqaluit election candidates

Four candidates want to run for Iqaluit city council’s vacant seat. (FILE PHOTO)

Iqaluit’s chief returning officer on Sept. 23 announced the four candidates who want to run for Iqaluit city council’s vacant seat: Douglas A. Cox, Lewis MacKay, Stephen Mansell, and Noah Papatsie.

The city’s eighth municipal councillor will be decided in a byelection on Oct. 28, the same day as the territorial election.

Elections for Iqaluit’s two school boards will also take place Oct. 28.

City councillors decided to run the by-election concurrently with the territorial as a cost-saving measure.

Four city residents registered their candidacy Sept. 23 for a seat left by Jimmy Kilabuk, who resigned last April due to failing health, and died shortly after.

Of the candidates who filed declaration papers, Mansell is the only one who has previously served as a councillor.

Papatsie ran for mayor in the last municipal election held in October 2012.

Also to be decided on election day: two openings for school commissioners on Iqaluit’s two school boards.

The returning officer announced three residents will contest two positions on the French-language Commission scolaire francophone du Nunavut — Luc Brisebois, Manon Painchaud and Michel Potvin.

No candidates were declared for the Iqaluit District Education Authority positions Sept. 23, and the returning officer, Kirt Ejesiak, extended the education authority’s deadline for nominations to Sept. 30 at 3 p.m.

Elections to the school boards are staggered, and take place every year, said Ejesiak.

Polling stations for city and school board elections will be located at the Cadet Hall and Abe Okpik Hall in Apex. On election day, voters will mark their choice on a paper ballot.

“We’ll be using an electronic tabulator system, with photographs, as we did in the last election,” Ejesiak said about the ballot. “The city found this was very efficient, with no human error.”

Ejesiak said he encourages all voters to verify the municipal voters list, which is separate from the Elections Nunavut list, to ensure they are registered to vote in the Iqaluit election.

Residents can find registration forms online. On the City of Iqaluit 2013 Elections website or pick them up at city hall. Forms must be submitted to city hall in person or by fax, he said.

Ejesiak also encourages Iqaluit residents to tell the city about residents on the list who no longer live in Iqaluit or have died.

“I wish the municipal election list was maintained on a regular basis, but it’s only at every election that we maintain it,” he said.

Iqaluit city councillors had expressed a hope that the Government of Nunanavut would allow the city to use their voters’ list to simplify the task.

“I’d prefer we did,” Ejesiak agreed. “But I guess the GN has their own reasons.”

You can check out the City of Iqaluit 2013 Elections website for updates on candidates.