Two Pangnirtung candidates offer different visions

Voters in Pangnirtung go to the polls Sept. 12 to choose a new MLA. Running for the seat are former fishing industry player Johnny Mike and former mayor Hezakiah Oshutapik. (FILE PHOTO)

Pangnirtung’s two by-election candidates have different resumes and different campaign priorities.

Johnny Mike, the former chairman of Niqitaq Fisheries Ltd., and Hezakiah Oshutapik, elected mayor of Pangnirtung in 2001 and 2004, and now an employee with the local housing authority, are in the running to fill the hamlet’s vacant seat in the Legislative Assembly.

Mike said that while Pangnirtung’s fishery, which boasts a fish plant and a small craft harbour that should be completed next year, is in good shape, challenges remain for hunters and fishers.

Nunavut fishing interests still only control about two-thirds of the offshore turbot quota, and Mike wants to push Ottawa to help that figure rise.

He also wants to challenge the highly unpopular decision by Fisheries and Oceans Canada to ban the export of narwhal tusks outside the country, which he said will do nothing to reduce the number of narwhal Nunavut hunters harvest every year.

“The federal government shot their own foot by doing that,” he said.

Mike also proposes a two-pronged approach to Nunavut’s social problems.

He said the Government of Nunavut needs to do more to incorporate Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit into social services. Elders and families need to be the source of solutions to social problems, Mike said.

“IQ should rule the government on social issues,” he said.

But he also said Nuanvut’s school system needs to do a better job generating high-school graduates with strong English skills.

Mike said he sees kids going through the school system without gaining English language skills that will allow them to pursue post-secondary education. The answer, he said, is to tighten up the grading systems

“If you don’t have that Grade 12 with the English language… you’re not going to anywhere, period,” he said.

Oshutapik is pitching his experience as mayor and focusing on more nuts-and-bolts issues. First, he wants to fix the problem of plumes of choking dust that get kicked up during the summer.

To do this, he wants to pave Pang’s streets because, he said, the hamlet’s current approach of spraying the streets with salt water just doesn’t work.

“This has been a problem for some time,” he said. “When we have a dry season it’s really bad.”

Oshutapik also wants to install artificial ice in Pang’s rink, because increasingly mild winters have shortened the hockey season to just a couple of months.

Over the last few years, freeze-up hasn’t come until late December or early January, and the ice is useless by March, he said.

“For some reason, our community’s the warm spot.”

He also wants improvements the GN’s medical travel services, which he said frequently bumps passengers off flights and leaves them stuck in Iqaluit.

“That’s not a very good way to handle patients,” he said.

While the winner in Pangnirtung will join other MLAs in deciding who will fill the current vacancy in cabinet, Mike wouldn’t be drawn in on the question of whether he’d be interested in seeking the cabinet seat.

“I’m not ruling it out that I’m not interested, it’s just that I have to be an MLA first,” he said.

Oshutapik agreed, saying he’d consult with his constituents before deciding whether to seek a cabinet post.

“I cannot just go ahead and say ‘Oh, I want to be a minister now,” he said.

Pangnirtung’s by-election was triggered when former MLA Adamee Komoartok stepped down this past March after being charged with assault in connection with an incident in an Iqaluit hotel.

That charge was later stayed by prosecutors.

Voting day is Sept. 12, though advance polls at local returning offices are open until Sept. 8.