Ignatieff Liberals make grassroots pitch to Nunavut

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff returns from a trip to Qaummaarviit territorial park near Peterhead Inlet. (PHOTO BY JIM BELL)

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, with Yukon MP Larry Bagnell, Aug. 12 in Iqaluit: “The future of Canada is being forged in Iqaluit. But there are a lot of problems,” Ignatieff said. (PHOTO BY JIM BELL)

Isaiah Berlin: A Life and Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism, chows down on junk food Aug. 11 at the Storehouse Bar and Grill in Iqaluit. (PHOTO BY GABRIEL ZÁRATE) “/>
Michael Ignatieff, ex-BBC television personality, ex-Harvard professor and author of Isaiah Berlin: A Life and Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism, chows down on junk food Aug. 11 at the Storehouse Bar and Grill in Iqaluit. (PHOTO BY GABRIEL ZÁRATE)

Larry Bagnell narrows his eyes against the morning sun and points to an elderly woman who crawls, step by painful step, over a pile of boulders that lie between her and the boat that will carry her down the bay for a day of clam-digging near Iqaluit.

“This is almost an embarrassment. We’ve got one of the capital cities. We’ve got harbours all across Canada, and here’s an elderly lady climbing across these big boulders to get into a boat because there’s not a wharf in Nunavut,” Bagnell said.

Bagnell, the soft-spoken Liberal MP for Yukon and the party’s Arctic affairs critic, passed through Iqaluit this week with Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, part of the opposition leader’s Liberal Express summer tour of Canada.

Not long after their feet hit the tarmac at the Iqaluit airport, they worked the same theme hard every time they got near a microphone: Stephen Harper talks big but doesn’t keep promises — vote for the Liberal alternative and we’ll do better.

Bagnell and Ignatieff also listed other infrastructure gaps they blame the Conservative government for ignoring, especially Iqaluit’s overcrowded airport terminal and the lack of small-craft harbours in communities,

They staged their final event Aug. 12 atop the rocky breakwater in Iqaluit that serves as a landing area for small boats, a convenient spot from which to castigate the Tories for failing to honour a perceived pledge to build a port for Nunavut’s seat of government.

“The future of Canada is being forged in Iqaluit. But there are a lot of problems,” Ignatieff told reporters Aug. 12. “We learned that Mr. Harper was here and made a promise about a deepwater port that he hasn’t kept. A lot of promises have been made that haven’t been kept. I don’t want to make promises — I came here to listen.”

But Ignatieff also made a point of praising Nunavut’s virtues, especially after a boat trip to the Thule site at the Qaummaarviit territorial park near Peterhead Inlet.

“This is just an extraordinary community. We were out in the park there and we saw the sod dwellings where the ancestors lived and you just think these people are some of the toughest and most resourceful people on earth. They’re an example to all Canadians,” Ignatieff said.

Ignatieff launched his Liberal Express summer tour of Canada on July 10 to present himself as a potential prime minister who’s willing to listen to Canadians.

To that end, he ventured Aug. 11 into the Storehouse Bar and Grill for its regular Wednesday night chicken-wing promotion, shaking hands with local party animals and munching on junk food just like a regular guy.

He also met Iqaluit residents at the local greenhouse, and mingled with about 30 local Liberal supporters at a gathering hosted by former Nunavut Liberal candidate Kirt Ejetsiak.

“He did talk to people on the street. It wasn’t closed secret meetings. He really started to get a feel for what the people in the street think. ” Bagnell said.

At the end it all, Ignatieff was eager to summarize his observations after a reporter asked him what he had learned.

“We learned their are fantastic strengths in this community and fantastic opportunities. It’s explosive growth — Iqaluit has an incredible future, the North has an incredible future, resource development, you name it,” Ignatieff said.

He also said he’s learned that housing, education, and justice issues present grave problems for Nunavut.

Referring to the staffing crisis that provoked Justice Robert Kilpatrick into asking the federal government to hire two more judges for the Nunavut court, Ignatieff said the Harper government’s approach to justice issues is doing real damage to Nunavut, especially new mandatory minimum sentences for certain classes of offences.

“We were talking to some lawyers last night who work in the system, who say lockup conditions are pretty terrible, who say we haven’t got enough justices here,” Ignatieff said.

“Manadatory minimums — you can talk that talk down south but up here it just removes all discretion from your local justice officials, and that is causing a lot of problems.”

But the Liberal party, which once dominated federal politics in the territory, is now a weakened force in Nunavut, thanks to Leona Aglukkaq’s victory in the Oct. 27, 2008 federal election.

Liberal Kirt Ejetsiak, who finished with about 30 per cent of the vote in that election, has already said he’s not interesting in contesting a second election.

So far, no potential Liberal candidate in Nunavut has made a public declaration.

And on that big question, Ignatieff would only say “we’re talking.”