Green Party recruits Inukjuak candidate for Abitibi-James Bay-Nunavik-Eeyou

Johnny Kasudluak of Inukjuak,who announced his candidacy this past week, wants to unseat the incumbent Bloc Québecois MP Yvon Lévesque on May 2. (PHOTO BY PEGGY LARGE)

Johnny Kasudluak wears many hats.

In not quite three decades, the 29-year-old Inukjuak resident has worked as a Grade 1 teacher, a police officer, a weather station operator and a Cordon Bleu-trained chef.

Today, his latest hat is coloured green. He’s thrown it into the ring to run for the Green Party in the northern Quebec riding of Abitibi-James Bay-Nunavik-Eeyou.

Kasudluak,who announced his candidacy this past week, wants to unseat incumbent Bloc Québecois MP Yvon Lévesque on May 2.

Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe pressured Lévesque into issuing a red-faced apology April 1 after Lévesque said some voters in the riding would never vote for Roméo Saganash, the NDP candidate in the riding, because he’s Cree.

Kasudluak is the first Nunavik resident – or Inuk, for that matter – to run as a candidate in the riding since former Makivik Corp. president Zebedee Nungak ran as an independent in the 1979 federal election, receiving two per cent of the vote.

Kasudluak told Nunatsiaq News that his decision to run in this federal election arises from a frustration with the status quo.

“In February, I wrote a letter in an email to [Lévesque] complaining that he was never present in the region,” Kasudluak said. “I’m not happy with his campaign material, which is only in French. No one, especially the elders, can understand them and it’s treated as junk mail.”

To ensure his message got across, Kasudluak copied all the other political parties on the email.

Lévesque didn’t respond, but a Green Party representative wrote back a few days later asking Kasudluak if he’d like to voice his concerns under their party banner.

Kasudluak, who has no political experience, said he spent two “mind-numbing” days thinking and reading the party platform until he decided he was up to the job.

During those two days, Kasudluak said he considered running as an independent, but quickly found links between the Green’s ecological approach and that of the Inuit, which he describes as “taking only what you need.”

In this election campaign, the Green Party argues that climate change is no longer just an environmental issue, but an issue connected to Canadian energy and economic policies.

The Green Party also supports an inquiry into the Canadian nuclear industry and a moratorium on the growth of Alberta’s oil sands.

Kasudluak said the five-foot long crack coming from a window in his house — created by the shifting permafrost below — is a constant reminder of what a warming climate means to northern regions like Nunavik.

“I’m just trying to be a voice for the people on the ground,” he said. “[The Green Party] isn’t just for the environment, it’s social too.”

The party has given him the space to adapt his campaign to the region, he said.

Kasudluak distances himself from one Green Party position: the one that condemns the commercial seal hunt.

Although Nunavik’s hunt is for subsistence needs — which the Greens support — Kadsudluak said he wants show solidarity with Inuit in Nunavut who hunt the animal commercially.

Here’s where Kasudluak stands on other issues:

• Social housing crisis — Kasudluak wants to address the riding’s housing shortage, something he says is not limited to Nunavik, by increasing the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp.’s support for social housing;

• Aboriginal rights — Kasudluak wants to implement the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People into Canadian law because, as it stands now, the government-endorsed declaration is legally non-binding;

• Nutrition North and its recent postponement — “The time frame is meaningless because it’s only delaying some actions,” Kasudluak said. “We need a program (based on) consultations with people who actually live in the North;”

• Arctic sovereignty — Kasudluak wants to see more money for the Canadian Rangers, and “the Harper government has promised three new ice-breakers in the region [that we haven’t seen],” Kasudluak said. “[Harper] is spending billions on fighter jets but he can’t even fund Canadian Rangers equipment;” and,

• Cost of living — Kasudluak wants to make the high cost of living in the North a more prominent issue in Ottawa “to alleviate poverty in the region.”

Kasudluak’s ideas have begun to trickle out to the region via his campaign Facebook page.

Although his budget is limited, Kasudluak plans to diffuse his platform in Inuktitut, English, French, Cree and Algonquin.

He plans to connect to Nunavimmiut through local community FM stations and hopes to get reduced Air Inuit fares to visit local communities as well as communities in the James Bay territory.

There, he faces stiff competition from Cree leader Romeo Saganash who will represent the New Democratic Party this election.

But Kasudluak says he’s glad to see another Aboriginal person in the running.

“I just hope [my campaign] inspires people in the riding, especially Inuit, to take in politics and work for the betterment of the region,” he said. “Once I start getting my message out, I think people will be voting for me and the Green Party. But for sure, my mother will vote for me.”

Johnny Kasudluk, the Green Party candidate in Abitibi-James Bay-Nunavik-Eeyou, is already campaigning in his home community of Inukjuak. (PHOTO BY PEGGY LARGE)