Anawak gains new political life

When Paul Okalik and his supporters in the legislative assembly removed Jack Anawak from cabinet last week, they did more than any of Anawak’s closest friends could have done to ensure that the MLA for Rankin Inlet North will be a powerful political force after the next election.

As soon as Iqaluit Centre MLA Hunter Tootoo introduced his motion to remove Anawak from cabinet, Okalik and those who support him had no choice but to ensure that the motion passed. But in doing so, they gave Anawak a platform to talk about things that resonate deeply with Nunavummiut.

Sometimes Anawak’s positions are contradictory, and not always supported by concrete fact and detail. But in politics that doesn’t matter. In Nunavut politics, it’s emotion that usually matters, and Anawak’s appeal is aimed at all those who feel that, so far, Nunavut has not lived up to its promise. Right now, that likely includes the vast majority of Nunavummiut.

In his remarks in the house last Friday, Anawak didn’t even bother to talk about the issue that led him to defy cabinet and provoke Okalik into stripping him of the CLEY portfolio last month. That’s the proposed move of some petroleum products division jobs from Rankin Inlet to Baker Lake. Few other MLAs bothered to talk about it either.

Instead, he conducted a lengthy attack on the current government, saying that so far it’s given us “nothing better than the same old departments, directives, positions and processes and maintaining all the same systems that had always seems to be foreign to Inuit.”

Anawak talked a lot about how Nunavummiut want a government that’s “new” and “different,” but provided few specific examples to illustrate the alternative ways that he would prefer.

The term “Inuit Qaumjimajatuqangit” isn’t used in the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, Nunavut Act or any of the other legal documents that gave life to the new territory. But in Nunavut’s electoral politics, that doesn’t matter anymore.

And the notion that government itself is alien to Inuit is still a big vote-getter in small communities.

Several of the MLAs who voted in support of Anawak last Friday have complained loudly and passionately about government itself.

“We have a government today that has so many laws and legislations that it is overwhelming. Even as individuals we are scared to express our feeling because of being afraid to break legislation or laws,” Amittuq MLA Enoki Irqittuq said in a member’s statement earlier that day.

That, incidentally, was part of a much larger statement that attacked the “Canadian human rights law,” and how it prevents Inuit from practicing their culture.

Another traditionalist MLA, David Iqaqrialu of Uqqumiut, said the same thing later on that day: “Whenever we say anything as Inuit, and when we’re talking about traditions and culture, we’re told that this is not the procedure. That’s how suppressed that we have been as Inuit by the government.”

There is a deep reservoir of traditionalist, anti-government and anti-modernist feeling that resides within the hearts of many ordinary people in the small communities, especially middle-aged men who have seen their status eroded by social workers, teachers, police and numerous other government officials. It’s likely that many will respond to Anawak’s appeal in the next election.

But dissatisfaction with the new territory runs wider and deeper than that, and appears to range across ethnicity, age, class, gender, community and level of education. So it’s possible that the next territorial election will produce a group of MLAs who may be inclined to put Jack Anawak into the premier’s job.

Paul Okalik has already said that he plans to run again for the legislative assembly and contest the premiership. A few months ago he looked like a shoo-in.

Although it’s not what he intended when he acted against Anawak to preserve cabinet solidarity, Okalik is no shoo-in now.

JB