Idlout and Gull-Masty might be paying the price of party discipline
Nunavut and Nunavik MPs have surprisingly avoided talking about recent government business
Nunavut MP Lori Idlout, left, and Mandy Gull-Masty, the MP for Abitibi–Baie-James–Nunavik–Eeyou, were not available this week to talk about their Liberal government obtaining a majority government in the House of Commons. (Idlout photo by Daron Letts; Gull-Masty photo, file photo)
Hopefully, Nunavut MP Lori Idlout hasn’t forgotten us now that she’s a member of the Liberal majority government in Ottawa.
It was surprising and disappointing that Idlout, the newly minted Liberal member of Parliament, and Nunavik MP Mandy Gull-Masty, a Liberal cabinet minister, weren’t available this week to talk about the Liberal party obtaining a majority government on Monday.
Nunatsiaq News was interested in how that political development might affect the North.
Through five MPs crossing the floor to join the Liberal caucus — including Idlout — and three byelection wins on Monday, Prime Minister Mark Carney has secured a two-seat majority government. Last year’s election results put the Liberals in power, but only with a minority government.
It has been a little over a month since Idlout bolted from the NDP caucus in the House of Commons into the warm embrace of Carney’s Liberal caucus.
But so far, Liberal Idlout hasn’t been as accessible as New Democrat Idlout was. It’s common for whatever party is in power to try to present a strong united front behind the prime minister.
In 2013, toward the end of Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper’s reign, some backbench MPs in his party complained they were being muzzled in the name of party discipline.
Since Idlout crossed the floor on March 10, there have been a couple of news stories that would have benefited from having the perspective of the member for Nunavut.
On March 12 — two days after Idlout joined the Liberal government — Carney announced his government’s plan to spend $35 billion to beef up Canada’s military presence in the North.
When a reporter asked Idlout about it, she said she was too busy making the transition to her new home in the Liberal party to comment on her own boss’s big announcement — an important plan with the potential to greatly change northern communities, including some in Nunavut.
Earlier this week, when Carney’s Liberals got the majority government they had been trying so hard to get, neither Idlout nor Gull-Masty were available to answer a reporter’s questions about what’s arguably the biggest development in Canadian politics since the 2025 election.
For whatever reason, the MPs didn’t want to talk about what, no matter how you slice it, is a good news story for Liberals. When there’s big news afoot involving the PM, maybe Liberal MPs just think it’s wiser not to steal his spotlight.
Opposition MPs traditionally have to clamber to get their criticisms of the government heard. As a New Democrat, Idlout was often effective in getting her message, her party’s message and Nunavummiut’s perspectives heard in Ottawa.
When Idlout defected from the NDP, some Nunatsiaq News readers said it was a shrewd move. As a member of the government, she would have more influence in the corridors of power, it would be easier to get her ideas heard by cabinet ministers, she would get a research budget and an opportunity to sit on House of Commons committees. They’re perks of being a Liberal that were not available to her as a New Democrat.
But explaining to their constituents what’s going on in Ottawa is one of the important roles an MP plays.
It would be unfortunate if the price to pay for being part of the government is that an MP is less free to do that.
All Liberal party politicians are told what to say and what not to say by the people and forces that own the party. That applies to Trudeau, Carney and Lori. It is the party of oligarchs and their bureaucracy. Who would be so naive to be surprised that politicians such as Mandy and Lori are hesitant to speak. In Idlout’s case she was bought by the LPC, whether through bribery or other coercion.
This editorial illustrates why, even with all its faults, Nunavut’s style of minority government is better than the party system used in Ottawa.
Mark Carney seems intent on continuing the traditional Canadian focus of exporting the resources of Canada, for the benefit of the few who have taken ownership of them, rather than using those resources in Canada, by Canadians, in value-adding processes that serve and enrich all Canadians.
And his MPs are there just to vote “yes” to whatever he he wants.