Nunavut’s government to be elected Friday

ANNETTE BOURGEOIS
Nunatsiaq News

IQALUIT — Nunavut’s first government is to be elected Friday.

Nunavut’s 19 MLAs are to choose the speaker, premier and cabinet ministers during a public forum at Iqaluit’s cadet hall.

The newly-elected representatives gathered in the capital this Monday for a two-week meeting to discuss Nunavut’s future, elect a government and hear what progress deputy ministers have made in setting up the government.

Friday’s session, the only session open to the public, will begin at 9 a.m. at the Legion cadet hall.

The first order of business for MLAs is to elect a speaker, who will then conduct the election of a premier and seven cabinet ministers. All ballots cast will be secret.

Levi Barnabas, the Quttiktuq MLA co-chairing the meeting, said MLAs finalized details of how the elections would take place Tuesday afternoon.

Each candidate for premier will have 20 minutes to speak, followed by questions from MLAs. Each MLA is permitted to ask a maximum of three questions.

If there are more than two candidates for premier, successive voting will take place, eliminating one candidate each time until there are two remaining.

“Each candidate who has the least votes will be dropped,” Barnabas explained, adding the person with the majority of votes in the final ballot is elected premier.

MLAs will then elect seven cabinet ministers, with each candidate permitted to speak for 10 minutes, followed by a question period similar to that of the premier’s election. A general vote will take place, with the top seven MLAs elected to cabinet.

Barnabas said the cabinet will have a heavy workload and a seven-member cabinet, larger than expected, will “make a challenging task more manageable.”

He said the premier will carry a portfolio and will personally assign portfolios to cabinet ministers. He added MLAs would decide before Friday how the eleven government departments would fall into portfolios.

“We want to deal with everything on Friday,” Barnabas said. “We can’t wait; the departments are already waiting.”

Nunavut’s departments are Community Government, Housing and Transportation; Culture Language, Elders and Youth; Executive and Intergovernmental Affairs; Finance and Administration; Education; Health and Social Services; Justice; Human Resources; Public Works, Telecommunications and Technical Services; and Sustainable Development.

An eleventh “department,” the Legislative Assembly, is overseen by the Speaker, who enjoys the same status, and the same pay and benefits as a cabinet minister.