NTI presidential candidate Cathy Towtongie wants to bring “structural changes” to the organization. (Photo courtesy of Cathy Towtongie)
Cathy Towtongie wants ‘structural changes’ in NTI
Longtime Nunavut politician running in NTI presidential byelection
Nunatsiaq News is publishing profiles of the 10 candidates in Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.’s May 27 presidential byelection.
There are two things every political hopeful needs to have, Cathy Towtongie says: “Fear of the lord” and “agreement” with their family, who must understand their lives will be more public.
Towtongie, one of 10 candidates running for the top job at Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., says she ticks both boxes.
“With my knowledge and with my experience I’m running for transparency and accountability,” she said in a phone interview.
Towtongie is a veteran of Nunavut politics. She has run in seven out of nine NTI presidential elections and byelections, winning three of them. From 2017 to 2021, Towtongie served as MLA for Rankin Inlet North-Chesterfield Inlet but lost her re-election bid to Alexander Sammurtok.
She plans to bring “structural changes” to NTI if elected.
“We have a multimillion dollar Inuit organization, and yet, we, the Inuit, are poor,” she said.
Towtongie pointed to royalties that NTI receives from mining that she says should go to Nunavut beneficiaries as dividends instead of NTI-run programs. In 2024, the organization and regional Inuit associations earned just under $100 million from mining royalties.
“We’re getting poorer and yet we have a billion-dollar Nunavut Trust. Something is not balanced,” Towtongie said.
As well, she says she will push for the Nunavut Land Use Plan to be adopted within three years. It has been in the works for 20 years, but its latest draft has been waiting since June 2023 for approval from three signatories: Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., the Government of Nunavut and the federal government.
Towtongie has long been a critic of NTI’s voucher program, calling it “undemocratic.” (The organization gives out a $100 voucher to each voter who shows up to the polls.)
At the same time, Towtongie praised NTI’s board for removing former president Jeremy Tunraluk after he was charged with assault in December.
“We have code of conduct, which I developed when I was the president within NTI. They are stringent. And we need to ensure that the board takes action, and they did,” she said.
Charges against Tunraluk were stayed, and he is now one of the candidates in the byelection.
Towtongie says she will be the president for Inuit of all regions.
“Let’s be realistic, we are Inuit and these regional boundaries were developed not by us. But as Inuit, we have to be united,” she said.
Towtongie is a passionate seamstress, mother, grandmother and graduate of the Native Law program at the University of Saskatchewan.
She is a residential school survivor and longtime resident of Rankin Inlet, a place she calls her “centre of the universe.”
Nothing says structural change like electing someone who held that office 3 times.
Agree that structural changes need to take place. Disagree that Trust money should be disbursed in dividends. As the proverb goes; Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.
Dividends are trivial compared to wealth generation from long term gainful employment. More so given the level of financial literacy within the Territory, they are unlikely to be re-invested by the recipient, rather squandered on whatever impulse buy.
That said, right now I can understand why people would want dividends from NTI, they currently feel they do nothing anyways and so that problem is what truly needs to be fixed.
NTI should be walking hand-in-hand with the GN to build infrastructure that will lead to a better future for upcoming generations and increase the likelihood of school attendance, completion and long-term employment. Multiplex recreation, trades training facilities, etc.
Even dividending out 1 billion dollars, which would wipe a Trust out at over 32,000 Inuks in Nunavut plus urban inuks if they get included that’s still only $30,000 or less per person in a one-time payment.
That is totally trivial in a life time compared to investing into infrastructure that can lead to workforce participation and people making 80,000 plus per year recurring and increasing each year.
Touting big dividends I think is just a way of buying votes, no different than the vouchers she was against. I don’t think its actually thought out in the long run.
Disburse dividends once you actually have basic infrastructure and work-force participation in the territory as a bonus, not now.
Yea, that’s a hard pass. I like my politicians to be grounded in reality, not stone age fairy tales.
I pass …
She lost the possibility of getting my vote at “Fear of the Lord”…