Two candidates join race for Uqqummiut seat

Niore Iqalukjuak, who tied Samuel Nuqingaq in the 2013 election, is running in the February by-election in Uqqummiut. (PHOTO COURTESY OF N. IQALUKJUAK)

Former Uqqummiut MLA James Arreak pictured at the Nunavut legislature in 2010. (FILE PHOTO)

One day before the deadline to file for candidacy in the upcoming Uqqummiut by-election, two candidates have jumped into the race.

James Arreak, a former MLA for the riding, is looking to get hisold job back, and he’ll face off against well-known photographer and former Arctic Bay mayor Niore Iqalukjuak.

Both candidates reside in Clyde River, which shares the riding with the nearby community of Qikiqtarjuaq.

But the list of candidates won’t be final until Jan. 9, the deadline to submit nomination papers.

Uqqummiut voters will return to the polls Feb. 9 to choose a new representative, just 15 months after Nunavut’s last territorial election.

On Oct. 28, 2013, the riding election ended in a tie between Qikiqtarjuaq candidate Samuel Nuqingaq and Clyde River’s Iqalukjuak, who both finished the night with 187 votes a piece.

A recount put Nuqingaq two votes ahead of Iqalukjuak.

But Nuqingaq’s short career as MLA was tainted right from the start, after he missed two days of orientation for newly-elected MLAs and showed up late to the Nunavut leadership forum.

In early 2014, Nuqingaq was charged with assault. Later that year, he left Qikiqtarjuaq to attend a rehabilitation program to deal with substance abuse.

Nuqingaq was finally expelled from Nunavut’s legislative assembly in October 2014.

Among the candidates confirmed at this point, voters will have the option of returning James Arreak to the legislature a fourth time.

The 62-year-old was first elected to represent the riding of Baffin Central in the Northwest Territories legislature in 1979, although he left politics a year later.

Arreak ran again in the revised riding of Uqqummiut in 2004, winning the seat that year and again in 2008. That’s the same year he was elected as speaker of the assembly, a role he resigned in 2010 to serve as minister of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth.

Iqalukjuak, a former mayor of Arctic Bay, is now an active resident of Clyde River. He’s become a vocal spokesperson behind the local movement to stop seismic testing in David Strait and Baffin Bay.

Iqalukjuak penned an open letter to Nunavut MP and environment minister Leona Aglukkaq last summer, accusing her government of committing “cultural genocide” by allowing the testing, which is scheduled to start in 2015.

If the 2013 territorial election is any indication, Uqqummiut residents will vote in high numbers — the voter turnout in the last election was 78 per cent.