New Democrats do Nunavut
NDP MPs hold winter caucus retreat in Rankin Inlet to hear about local issues
The federal NDP caucus held its winter retreat in Rankin Inlet last week so MPs could hear directly from Nunavummiut. From left: Vancouver East MP Jenny Kwan, interim leader and Vancouver Kingsway MP Don Davies, Nunavut MP Lori Idlout and Courtenay-Alberni MP Gord Johns. (Photo courtesy of MP Lori Idlout)
The federal NDP caucus met in Rankin Inlet last week for its winter retreat. The party’s MPs were treated to Nunavummiut hospitality, endured blizzards and heard about the challenges of living in the North, interim party Leader Don Davies said in an interview Monday.
“I’ve spoken to a few people who said that when you go North, you start falling in love with it,” he said.
It was the Vancouver-area politician’s first time in Nunavut. Davies has been interim NDP leader since the party’s former head Jagmeet Singh lost his House of Commons seat in last April’s election.
New Democrats are expected to choose a new leader at a convention in late March.
Generally, the NDP holds a caucus retreat a week before a parliamentary sitting. For this year’s winter retreat, its MPs chose Rankin Inlet. Parliament resumed Monday, following a six-week break that began before Christmas.
One purpose of the retreat is to get to know the people and places that make up their constituencies, Davies said.
Members spent the week meeting with community leaders and members.
Nunavut MP Lori Idlout couldn’t attend the first day because a winter storm prevented her plane from landing, she said Monday.
Her fellow MPs sat for several presentations she said were “received very well” and that helped inform them about “some of the realities that Nunavummiut experience,” Idlout said.
Davies said the issues faced by the rest of Canada seem to be “experienced more acutely in the North.”
“Learning about the history, the traditions, the pride of the Inuit, and everybody else who has made the North their home was really striking. It was eye-opening,” Davies said.
“We have housing problems in the rest of Canada, but nowhere else, I don’t think, is it as serious as we experienced in Rankin.”
Nunavummiut homes are often overcrowded. Residents told MPs they had been on housing waitlists for more than 10 years, Davies said.
The price of food was another example of the challenges faced by Nunavummiut
“It’s one thing to know about expensive food prices. It’s another to walk into a grocery store, which we did, and see a gallon of apple juice for $28, a kilogram of onions for $15 or a tin of coffee for $35,” Davies said. “It’s shocking.”
Idlout said she has been telling her NDP colleagues about these issues since she was first elected in 2021.
MPs visiting Rankin Inlet and hearing first-hand from Nunavummiut created a sense of urgency to the stories she had been telling for many years.
Hearing directly from Nunavummiut has more of an impact, she said.
“I am hopeful, that even though Nunavut has only one seat in the House of Commons, that there will be more MPs helping to amplify the voice of Nunavut and pushing this government to invest more in the North and especially in its people,” she said.
Several MPs said there would be a renewed focus on the needs of Nunavummiut when they returned to Parliament.
NDP who?
Exactly
Great to see all four NDP members of parliament in one single photo!
Well, well. If it isn’t the (NDP) Not Doing-anything Party, with Nunavummiut’s outstanding MP “Lori IDoLittle. Read the room. There are four of you in your “Cacus” out of a total of 7 members of Parliament. You received 6.3% of the popular vote in the last election. Your party doesn’t even meet the threshold of official Party status in Parliament anymore. But when given the chance to make a difference, advocate for action or act as good legislators in moments of importance, you chose to “abstain”. As if that is some sort of power or good governance! Seriously.
Then your “interim” Leader Davies comes out with ridiculous comments like, “Learning about the history, the traditions, the pride of the Inuit, and everybody else who has made the North their home was really striking. It was eye-opening”. Sure, let’s go with eye opening. Should you not have had an understanding of what the “north” is before? Should Idlout not have been vocalizing, and working to move these to the forefront? Housing, Food Insecurity, etc… just became “issues” and “challenges” up here… yeah, no they have been here for years and years and years. Should you not have understood the challenges, hardships and needs given you have an MP elected to Parliament who is supposed to advance the causes and needs of Nunavummiut? Along with being a member of your so-called Cacus.
Guess not. No wonder there are only 7 of you left.
If the Temu GOP under PP had won the seat, they’d be pushing to hand over control of Nunavut to the White House. Your criticisms are meaningless.
Not sure which is more deserving of a face palm? The fact that these people scheduled a conference in Nunavut in January and are surprised by weather delay, or the fact that the whole party can fit into a minivan and still feel they are still relevant.
Do you jump much Umingmak? Because you just jumped to a major conclusion regarding who I might or might not support. Which you got wrong by the way. Regardless of who I do support, does not undermine the total lack of usefulness of Nunavut MP and the total unequivocal irrelevancy of the NDP.
Gotta be careful of these welcoming places with little much population easy access jet services to outside of nunavut where housing is a problem. Always againts inuit policies and gotta look into their work all the time. Not a very welcoming place too those places rankin inlet, always scary alot of drinking, prison there and not to even go through rankin inlet to winnipeg iqaluit yellowknife.