'It's going to be really busy.'

Nunavut's legislature resumed this past Tuesday, with MLAs preening for hometown voters by battering cabinet ministers with a laundry list of locally-based gripes.

But MLAs also formally endorsed Norman Pickell, a lawyer from Goderich, Ont., as the territory's new integrity commissioner and plowed through first and second reading of four supplementary appropriations bills.

"It's going to be really, really busy," said Ed Picco, the government house leader. "We have a lot of legislation coming forth."

MLAs will also try to pass the new Education Act, the Midwifery Act, the Energy Efficiency Act and the Inuit Language Protection Act. Also on the agenda are some financial housekeeping bills and a "Miscellaneous Justice Amendments Act."

But with a territorial election scheduled for Oct. 27, regular MLAs spent the first day of the new session demanding answers from cabinet ministers over a long list of complaints.

Akulliq MLA Steve Mapsalak asked Ed Picco, the energy minister, if there were new programs in the offing to help homeowners beset by high fuel costs. Picco said he couldn't give an answer until all of Nunavut's fuel has been delivered.

Baker Lake MLA David Simailak wanted to know what the government is doing to recruit nurses, doctors and dentists to work in his community, which he said has grown beyond its existing health care capacity.

Meanwhile, Tunnuniq MLA James Arvaluk demanded to know why a capital plan was amended, depriving Pond Inlet of a new arena, which was, he said, to be built at the same time as a new community centre.

And Rankin Inlet North MLA accused Paul Okalik, the premier, of robbing smaller communities of infrastructure money to pay for a $12-million road-paving project that got underway in Iqaluit this past summer.

Okalik responded that Iqaluit simply received a block grant in fewer installments and chipped in some of its own money into the project, which it can do as a tax-based community. But the premier also extended an invitation to "all larger municipalities to become towns" so they can fund similar projects.

The appointment of Pickell as integrity commissioner passed unanimously and was met with applause from MLAs and a "welcome aboard" from deputy speaker James Arreak.

His first task was to complete a review of emails sent between former finance minister David Simailak and some of his business partners. That task is finished, Pickell told reporters, and the report was to have been tabled sometime this week, after the Nunatsiaq News press-time.

He'll also meet with the batch of MLAs after October's election "to go over what their obligations are under the Integrity Act and how to stay on my good side."

With files from Jim Bell