GNWT shows Nunavut how to do it

Few Nunavut residents know about it. But this week, three Northwest Territories cabinet ministers are providing their counterparts in Nunavut with a lesson in how to serve the people they represent.

Stephen Kakfwi, the NWT’s premier, Joe Handley, the NWT’s minister of Finance, and Jim Antoine, the NWT’s minister of Renewable Resources and Economic Development, visited Ottawa this week for what they described as a “concentrated three-day lobby for infrastructure funding.”

On Tuesday, the second day of their tour, they met with Paul Martin, the federal minister of Finance, while Antoine spoke to the House of Commons standing committee on aboriginal affairs. On other days, they met with other ministers and federal public officials.

Although the NWT has a stronger economy than Nunavut, its government has been stung by the same short-sighted federal policies that have crippled Nunavut over the past three years. They, too, need more money for basic infrastructure and basic public services. They, too, are tired of coping with federal transfer programs that distribute Ottawa’s money solely on a per capita basis, without taking into account the enormous costs created by northern Canada’s climate and geography.

So they did what the people of the Northwest Territories would expect them to do. They went to Ottawa to conduct an organized, assertive lobby.

Has the Nunavut cabinet done the same? Some key ministers, on some occasions, have conveyed the right messages to Ottawa. Others have not. But overall, the Nunavut government’s stance towards the federal government appears to be unfocused and poorly coordinated.

The premier, Paul Okalik, along with the other two territorial premiers, has clearly and forcefully explained the weaknesses of per capita infrastructure funding at various federal-provincial gatherings over the past two and a half years. Ed Picco, the health minister, has at times made the same kinds of arguments with respect to health care financing.

On the other hand, Kelvin Ng, the finance minister, appears reluctant to say anything that might be offensive to Ottawa. Manitok Thompson and Jack Anawak, the two ministers who, one after the other, have been responsible for the department most directly concerned with infrastructure, Community Government and Transportation, seem quite content with the status quo.

Indeed, Anawak, just a few months after being taken out of the Community Government portfolio, was responsible last month for uttering one of the most embarassing idiocies we’ve heard so far within the Nunavut legislative assembly.

In a childish rant against the Nunavut Association of Municipalities, Anawak slammed the organization for deciding to hold its annual general meeting at the end of this month in Ottawa, rather than Cambridge Bay. Anawak’s outburst was inspired by NAM’s opposition to the fat new supplementary pension plan and transition allowance that MLAs voted for themselves after many months of secret discussions.

But while they’re in Ottawa, the NAM will do what Anawak failed to do when he was the minister responsible for Nunavut’s cash-starved municipalities — they will lobby the federal government on the infrastructure issue. They plan to address the House of Commons standing committee on finance. Labour Minister Claudette Bradshaw, Public Works Minister Don Boudrias and DIAND Minister Bob Nault are all expected to attend.

And guess what? Nunavut’s current community government minister, Manitok Thompson, is scheduled to attend as well.

But Nunavut’s cabinet ministers should still be embarrassed. Given the large number of prominent Liberals in the Nunavut government, it’s astounding that so few of them have used their connections with the governing party for the betterment of Nunavut.

JB