Last chance for grandstanding
As territorial election looms, MLAs can’t resist urge to score last-minute points
MLAs discuss government business inside Nunavut’s legislative assembly in this file photo. On Tuesday, newly elected MLAs will be in Iqaluit to take part in a leadership forum to select a new Speaker, premier and cabinet members. (File photo by Jeff Pelletier)
In the dying days of Nunavut’s sixth legislative assembly, some MLAs seem to be using their remaining time to score points before hitting the campaign trail next month.
In the political arena, the players often try to put each other on the spot — even in Nunavut’s consensus government.
But with the Oct. 27 territorial election looming, some of the exchanges Nunatsiaq News reported on this week suggest this is happening with more zeal than normal.
This, after all, is their last chance for grandstanding.
For example, on Tuesday, Aivilik MLA Solomon Malliki raised the awkward, uncomfortable issue about whether immigrants are “taking over” jobs in Nunavut that should be intended for Inuit.
It had echoes of the recent controversy over the federal temporary foreign worker program and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s claim that the program lets workers from outside Canada take jobs from this country’s young people.
On Monday — the first day of the legislative assembly’s fall sitting — MLAs Joe Savikataaq and George Hickes were quick to go after Health Minister John Main over a ceremony Sept. 5 to mark progress on a long-term care centre in Cambridge Bay. Savikataaq called it a “photo op.”
They grilled Main over the fact the cost of the centre has not been publicly reported.
But Main responded that, because his department is in the process of hiring a company to build it, he wouldn’t publicly discuss it.
It makes sense to hold back that tidbit while shopping for a contractor. When you buy a car, you don’t tell the salesperson how much money is in your bank account.
Why wouldn’t Savikataaq, a former premier, and Hickes, a former finance minister, have seen that answer coming a mile away?
At a Sept. 5 committee hearing on the auditor general’s report on housing, Netsilik MLA Joseph Quqqiaq asked Clarence Synard, the head of NCC Development Ltd., the company hired to build 2,000 homes as part of the Nunavut 3000 plan, whether his company had the right number of resources — including workers — to deliver on its commitment.
In journalism, that’s known as a “gotcha question” — one meant to embarrass the respondent or put him on the spot more than to elicit a meaningful answer.
Synard conceded that when NCC signed the agreement, it “did not have a full team.”
But how surprising is it that a construction company didn’t have workers sitting around just waiting to build 2,000 homes before it signed a contract?
What’s more important than how big its team was when the contract was signed is how quickly it ramped up to deliver on the contract. As Nunavut approaches the midpoint of the program to build 3,000 new homes between 2022 and 2030, its success should be judged by how quickly NCC and other builders moved to deliver on the contract.
They’re just three recent examples of politicians using their questions to score points while also doing government business.
There’s a little more than a week left in the life of this legislative assembly and Nunavut is plunged into an election campaign. As this legislative assembly winds down, Nunatsiaq readers should watch for the grandstanding to intensify.
Hickes and Savikataaq keep being the hated as former leaders. They are asking the questions I would ask. Why do a sod turning ? If you look at the govt approval process. It is only in design stage. There have been many projects cancelled in design stage.
So much money spent for a possible event that may be cancelled. Our next government needs to define their own priorities. I hope around homelessness and mental health.
After 4 years of frustration to this Government. I sure hope the Premier sees that keeping Mr Hickes and Mr Saviikataaq out of cabinet was a big mistake.
Synard does not own NCC
Period that should of been his response instead of saying he does not have a full team
Corey, respectfully, not sure I understand why you are pointing to those questions as “grandstanding”. We have all seen Governments come and go the last 25 years. It seems to me that a major part of an elected official’s job is to ask questions. This, regardless of the type of Government we have here in Nunavut.
The three examples you gave appear to be valid questions. With the exception of the Malliki one, which one might justifiably argue was in fact “grandstanding” in the worst possible way and perhaps something much, much darker, so we will let that one stand.
In the second example you question why Savikataaq or Hickes would question Main regarding the “sod turning” in Cam Bay for the Elders Care Facility. The questions they asked was. Why was this being done at that particular time just two weeks before the end of this Government tenure when the project is not even finalized nor the final Capital approved to bring it to its completion. Pointing out the potential lack of judgment and ulterior motives of spending money to travel and do a large-scale project announcement when in fact the next Government (who must give final approval) may not even give it its blessing, seems to me like an appropriate line of questioning. The timing is also suspect as that Photo-opportunity also included the Premier who was conveniently there instead of in Iqaluit during the hearings on Housing. Also, regarding where exactly the additional funding comes from and how much was also justifiable. Main did not need to give exact figures but could have gave percentages to respond to the questions. It seems to me all those things considered; these were appropriate questions that could have been asked anytime but just so happens they did on the final week of the Assembly.
In the third example, the question asked by Quqqiaq seemed more than appropriate during the Committee hearings. That Committee was supposed to be trying to find out what was wrong at NHC and with Nu3000 pursuant to the AG Report in late May. Your own newspaper along with numerous other media outlets and covered extensively since May, the underperformance and failures of NHC and NCCD. The question he asked that you called a “gotcha” question was actually highly enlightening. It showed the fact that NCCD admitted it did not have the team, resources, etc… at the time of the signing in 2022 with NHC to build 2000 homes, 1400 of them public housing units at a value of 1.4 Billion tax payer dollars. Synard claimed when responding to that question, that they had taken steps to build the team, resources, etc… since 2022. This is obviously not the case as now, 3 years later, NCCD has failed to meet any of its contract delivery dates while at the same time, has charged NHC an additional 30 million. Evidently NCCD has not done what it needed to do to ensure it could deliver its part of the contract. Their failures speak for themselves. The question and the answer it solicited, made this crystal clear.
It is fair to say, that people should expect their elected officials to ask questions. Difficult ones. Ones that deserve answers. That is the way to allow everyone in Nunavut to understand what this Government is or is not doing and how they are taking care of the public purse and the citizens best interests. If what you call is “grandstanding”, then Nunavut needs way more of this.