Nunavik self-government signing postponed

Self-government for Nunavik has never seemed so close before slipping out of reach: Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Quebec’s premier Jean Charest were supposed to come to Kuujjuaq this weekend to sign the final agreement-in-principle on Nunavik’s new form of regional government during a meeting on regional development this past week.

But Nunavik’s self-government was once again shoved to the back-burner due to a highly anticipated call for a Quebec provincial election, which many observers believe would be held March 26.

Charest will hammer out an election platform with his fellow Liberals in Quebec City this weekend, instead of discussing Nunavik issues in Kuujjuaq.

And instead of a low-key meeting in Kuujjuaq, Harper and Charest met earlier this week in the southern Quebec cities of Sherbrooke and Trois-Rivières where, among other things, Harper announced Quebec would receive about $350 million of a new national $1.5-billion clean air and climate change fund.

Harper, Charest and Pita Aatami, the president of Makivik Corp., were set to sign the agreement-in-principle during the three-day Katimajiit forum, scheduled to start on Thursday, Feb. 15, that would have set into motion a process to created Nunavik’s new regional government.

More than 100 participants had travel plans to attend the meeting, an invitation was sent to southern media, and a preliminary agenda was drawn up.

But the Katimajiit meeting, which had been in the works for months, was postponed.

“By common agreement, the Government of Canada, the Government of Québec and the Inuit have decided to postpone the holding of the Katimajiit Forum … this is a postponement and not a cancellation,” said a news release, which promised the forum would be held at a later date.

“We jointly decided that it would be better to have this important event later in the year. Priorities such as Nunavik Government, high cost of living, housing, health, culture and education have to be discussed in a very near future and actions have to be taken,” Aatami said in the release.

This event will now likely be held after a new provincial government is elected.

That’s because Quebec looks set to hold an election on March 26.

The timing for an election call seems likely because recent polls have put the Liberals ahead of the separatist Parti Québécois for the first time since 2004.

Charest won his current five-year term in 2003. Most expected an election call to come later, in March, after a party policy convention, with Quebec heading to the polls in April or early May.

But that policy convention was postponed in favour of a party election platform meeting for Saturday, Feb. 17 – which explains why top Liberal leaders could not travel to Kuujjuaq at the same time.

A campaign is likely to be launched around Feb. 21 for the Monday, March 26 vote. Quebec’s election law says that the provincial election day must be the fifth Monday after the premier calls a vote.