NTI: By apathy indicted

It’s true that in this week’s farcical exercise aimed at choosing two new members for Nunavut Tunngavik’s executive, two people ended up getting legally elected.

But Nunavut land claim beneficiaries made a far more important choice on Dec. 10 — they extended their upturned middle fingers at Nunavut Tunngavik and said “Screw you.”

That’s because, of the 14,218 Nunavut land claim beneficiaries estimated to be eligible to vote in this election, only 6,335 bothered to cast ballots, for a turnout of only 45 per cent.

This means a majority of Nunavut’s Inuit beneficiaries are now so alienated from NTI they can’t even be bothered to take 20 minutes out of their day to cast a ballot.

When you consider that the Inuit of Nunavut surrendered the only bargaining chip they had — their aboriginal title — to get the agreement that NTI is supposed to administer, this is a major embarrassment.

From Baffin to Kitikmeot, Monday night’s turnouts were pathetic, a Nunavut-wide vote of non-confidence in NTI. At one polling station in Kugluktuk, turnout figures at the community’s two polling stations stood at 26 per cent and 27 per cent respectively. In Cape Dorset’s two polling stations, turnouts stood at 36 and 34 per cent. In Iqaluit’s five polling stations, turnouts ranged between 28 and 38 per cent.

Only in tiny communities such as Resolute Bay, Grise Fiord, Whale Cove and Repulse Bay did turnouts range above 60 per cent, but the thousands of NTI voters in larger communities who stayed home more than cancelled out those displays of relative enthusiasm.

For Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., Monday’s voting event wasn’t an election — it was an indictment. And no matter how well-intentioned they may be, whichever candidate ends up with the greatest number of votes in such exercises may claim little or no political legitimacy.

But it gets worse. If, in addition to the poor turnout, you then calculate the effect of bizarre vote splits produced when large numbers of candidates compete within our antiquated first-past-the-post electoral system, the legitimacy of the winning candidates sinks even lower.

In the Nunavut Tunngavik presidential election, contested by six candidates, Cathy Towtongie “won,” even though only 26.8 per cent of those who cast ballots voted for her. That means 73.2 per cent of voters — almost three out of every four — voted for other people. Hardly a ringing endorsement.

And if you compare the number of votes Cathy Towtongie received, 1,700, with the number of people eligible to vote, 14,218, you’ll find that only 11.9 per cent of eligible Inuit beneficiaries actually went to polling stations to cast ballots for her. So a whopping 88.1 per cent of eligible Inuit voters in Nunavut either voted for other candidates or didn’t bother to vote at all.

No one elected this way enjoys any political legitimacy. No one elected this way has the right to say that he or she is a leader. Although this is not Cathy Towtongie’s fault, she does not have the right to claim that she represents the Inuit of Nunavut.

Neither could anyone else under such circumstances. The harsh truth is that outside of the Nunavut Legislative Assembly, the Inuit of Nunavut have no credibly elected leaders.

This was not always so. In the 1980s, Nunavut was renowned for voting turnouts that ranged past 80 per cent in most elections.

But now Nunavummiut avoid polling stations in droves. The turn-out in last fall’s Qikiqtani Inuit Association was about 40 per cent. So was the turnout in Iqaluit’s municipal election last year, down from the 65 per cent turnouts that Iqaluit used to produce in the 1980s. This year’s round of hamlet elections in Nunavut produced similarly pathetic turnouts.

It’s ironic that this should occur less than two weeks after the pretentious orgy of self-congratulation that Canada’s Inuit elite conducted in Ottawa on Dec. 2. to celebrate the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada’s 30th birthday. Of the pot-bellied ITC has-beens who stuffed themselves full of free food, free booze and unearned praise, it’s likely that only a few even care that in Nunavut, ITC’s prize creation, the people they claim to represent are thumbing their noses at them in droves.

DIAND minister Bob Nault wisely stayed away from the event, during which ITC officials made a pitch for a permanent core-funding agreement with the federal government. Although this idea has some merit, we hope Ottawa resists the temptation to give any more money to ITC until it and its component organizations in the regions can demonstrate that they democratically represent the Inuit of Canada.

In recent years, we’ve heard a lot of talk about the need for “new ideas,” especially from people who don’t have any. But surely, the people of Nunavut badly need to look at new ways of running elections, whether they’re for Inuit associations or for public governments.

So, here are some new ideas:

• In multi-candidate elections where no candidate is able to get 50 per cent plus one of votes cast, hold run-off elections between the top two finishers. This will at least ensure that the eventual winner earns a majority of votes cast.

• If people don’t like that idea, then hold elections where people may indicate second, third and fourth choices — also known as the single transferable vote system. Where no candidate is able to get 50 per cent of votes cast, you then count voters’ alternative choices until somebody ends up with 50 per cent plus one.

• Create a single professional elections agency in Nunavut with the authority to organize and publicize elections for both public governments and Inuit associations, with the cost to be shared between the government of Nunavut and Nunavut Tunngavik. Such an agency would be responsible also for enumerations, preparing lists of electors, and training returning officers and poll clerks.

Simplistic, first-past-the-post elections only work when there are two, perhaps three candidates. In Nunavut, where half a dozen or more candidates contest most positions, the system produces absurd results that do not reflect the wishes of voters. It’s essential, then, that the people of Nunavut radically change the way they do elections.

As for Nunavut’s shrinking voter turnouts, no amount of legislation can change that. Ultimately, that’s up to the people of Nunavut and those who run Nunavut’s political institutions.