NDP nominates Jack Hicks to run in Nunavut

Jack Hicks of Iqaluit is the New Democratic Party’s candidate in the May 2 federal election. He’ll take on Conservative incumbent Leona Aglukkaq. The Liberal and Green parties have yet to name candidates. (PHOTO BY CHRIS WINDEYER)

Nunavut has itself a federal election campaign.

Jack Hicks, an Iqaluit-based researcher who focuses on suicide prevention, announced April 4 that he’ll carry the NDP banner in the May 2 federal election.

Hicks is the first candidate to emerge to challenge Conservative incumbent Leona Aglukkaq.

But Hicks said he’s setting his sights higher.

“I’m running against what a majority Conservative government would mean for Nunavut in the long-term,” he said in an interview April 4, shortly after launching his campaign.

Hicks said last month’s federal budget, which wasn’t passed before Parliament dissolved, triggering the current election campaign, offered a glimpse of what Nunavut can expect if the Tories win a majority.

The budget “contained not a penny for new social housing or mental health facilities or any of Nunavut’s critical social needs,” he said.

“It would have resulted in the building of exactly zero additional houses (in Nunavut) despite the obvious need.”

In addition to housing, he said there’s a drastic need for Ottawa to take action on Nunavut’s dire suicide situation, a revamp of the new Nutrition North Canada food subsidy program (Hicks said it’s “remarkably mismanaged”), and stable, predictable funding for mental health treatment and early childhood education programs.

He also sat on the working group that produced Nunavut’s suicide prevention strategy and worked as the director of the Nunavut Bureau of Statistics and as director of research for the Nunavut Implementation Commission.

The question is whether the strong base of support that the NDP candidate in the last election, Paul Inrgaut, built in 2008 will hold this time around.

Irngaut captured nearly 28 per cent of the vote and finished fewer than 600 votes behind Aglukkaq.

“It was the closest three-way race in the country,” Hicks said of the 2008 vote.

This time, observers are touting Aglukkaq as a heavy favourite, a perception that’s reinforced by the fact that she was unopposed until Hicks entered the race.

The Liberals are expected to name a Nunavut candidate by the end of this week, while it’s still unclear what the Green Party is doing after their candidate dropped out for health reasons.

Aglukkaq headed off April 4 to campaign in Pangnirtung and Qikiqtarjuaq.

Hicks acknowledges that Aglukkaq, who served as the federal health minister in the last government, is a formidable opponent who gets a boost because she’s frequently been able to announce new federal spending projects in the territory.

“I think everybody likes Leona and recognizes that she’s a hard-working constituency MP,” he said.

But Hicks said Nunavut voters need a choice at the polls and wants to speak out against what he says are the Conservatives’ misguided priorities.

He blasted the government’s decision to spend $16 billion on new F-35 fighter jets while refusing to renew funding for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, which community leaders in Nunavut said funded badly needed local counselling programs.

“This is not a part of the country like the others in the sense that we have very unique needs on the social level,” he said. “And the Harper government would seem uniquely incapable of recognizing those needs and meeting those needs.

“That’s why a voice in Ottawa that’s focused on social realities from a community perspective might actually result in more money flowing to Nunavut.”