Is Nunavut’s cabinet too big?

As Nunatsiaq News went to press this week, four inexperienced, rookie MLAs were vieing with one another for the honour of grabbing one of Nunavut’s most lucrative and powerful political jobs — that of cabinet minister.

The man who won the job, Hudson Bay MLA Peter Kattuk, is at least as inexperienced as the man whose resignation late last month created the vacancy, Kugluktuk MLA Donald Havioyak.

It’s no secret that Havioyak’s department, Culture, Elders, Language and Youth, was been in considerable disarray and that MLAs were preparing to pepper him with questions about it. Is there any reason to believe that someone with Kattuk’s lack of administrative experience will perform any better?

Instead of looking for a new minister from among themselves, MLAs should have let the position remain vacant, and Premier Paul Okalik should have re-assigned the CLEY portfolio either to himself or to one of his remaining ministers.

Territorial cabinet ministers rake in more than $100,000 a year in indemnities, allowances, benefits and bonuses, in recognition of the heavy responsibilities that are supposed to go with the job, and the abilities that a cabinet minister is supposed to posess.

Nunavut’s legislative assembly does not contain a deep pool of talent from which to assemble an eight-person cabinet. Given the continous migration of educated people from the smaller to the larger communities in Nunavut, this is likely to be the case for the foreeable future.

Nunavut’s 19-member legislative assembly should be able to function with a six or seven member cabinet. JB