Nunavik leader Charlie Watt officially departs the Senate

Charlie Watt is sworn in as Makivik president March 19 in Puvirnituq by Makivik governor Eva Deer. (PHOTO COURTESY OF MAKIVIK)

Nunavut Senator Dennis Patterson is pictured with outgoing Senator Charlie Watt Feb. 28 on Parliament Hill during a retirement event for Watt, who now serves as president of Makivik Corp. (PHOTO COURTESY OF CANADIAN SENATE)

Charlie Watt served his last official day as a member of Canada’s Senate March 16.

The long-time, Nunavik-based senator announced his retirement in January, when he was elected as president of Makivik Corp., an organization Watt founded in 1978 and where he served as president for two previous terms.

The Kuujjuaq-based politician and former businessman was first appointed to the Senate in January 1984 by Pierre Trudeau, then the Prime Minister.

Before Makivik’s January election, Watt, 73, said he planned to retire from the Senate if elected, a role he’d have to retire from in 2019 anyway, as the Senate requires for members who reach age 75.

Watt’s colleagues paid tribute to the long-time senator at a Feb. 28 event to mark his retirement, crediting Watt for his work championing Indigenous rights and language over his 34-year career.

“Inuktitut became a language of this chamber, the first Aboriginal language to be represented in the Senate,” said Senator Peter Harder in his tribute to Watt Feb. 28.

“If Inuktitut speakers can hear and read their language in Senate reports and proceedings, they have Charlie Watt to thank.”

Watt also put forward a motion last year to create a Special Senate Committee on the Arctic, a venue to discuss oil and gas exploration, infrastructure, environmental conservation and Arctic sovereignty.

“I’ll miss Charlie, and I had been looking forward to working with him on the Special Committee on the Arctic,” said Nunavut Senator Dennis Patterson Feb. 28.

“I’m sorry we can’t work together, but we can still work together to recognize and further the rights of Inuit. My friend, I salute you for your service. I’m honoured to have been sponsored by you when I was sworn into this body. You bring credit and honour to this place.”

Watt’s parting words in the Senate touched on his efforts, in the Senate and moving forward, to promote Inuit rights and self-determination.

“As Aboriginal people in this country, we have operated and have tried to operate under general laws of application,” he said Feb. 28.

“Over the last few years, we began to realize that that doesn’t work. So we have to begin to look differently at how the structure should be structured.”

Watt pledged to bring those issues to the Inuit-Crown Partnership Committee as president of Makivik.

“So I’m not disappearing, and I will be bringing those subjects that I am talking about probably back to this floor here,” Watt said.

“Remember, always, we are two different people, but we have one country. We have to respect that. The country is diverse, and it will always remain diverse. Let’s build upon it, not negatively, but positively.”

Just days after his official retirement from the Senate, Watt was sworn in March 19 as Makivik’s president at the organization’s annual general meeting in Puvirnituq, which runs until March 23.