O’Brien campaigns on construction boom

Kevin O’Brien, the MLA for Arviat and Nunavut’s speaker of the legislative assembly, is sounding cautiously confident about his re-election bid.

“The response to me appears to be good. The people who are working on my campaign feel good about the campaign,” O’Brien said in a telephone interview from his campaign office in Arviat. “It’s been quiet in the community. It’s been bitterly cold here since before Christmas. That takes the excitement out of a lot of people.”

O’Brien said many residents tell him they’re proud their MLA became Speaker.

O’Brien has explained to his constituents that as a Speaker, it doesn’t mean he won’t deal with their affairs, but instead he deals directly with the Premier or ministers on issues.

“Our community has done much better with me as Speaker than when I was a regular member,” O’Brien said.

Like other MLAs, O’Brien has been obliged to spend a lot of time away from his riding, in Iqaluit.

“If you want to deliver the various products and services in your community, that’s where the action is, the capital, that’s Iqaluit,” O’Brien said.

The big challenge for the future, he said, will be to keep what the community has achieved over the past few years and build on it – “not have it siphoned away to some other regional centre.”

“The message I’m hearing is that they want someone with experience and they don’t want to start all over again because there’s too much at stake,” O’Brien said.

Among his achievements as MLA, O’Brien can point to a new $15-million school, the transfer of headquarters for Nunavut Arctic College and regional education and housing corporation offices to Arviat, and a new daycare centre.

“With the construction of the new school, there will be work here for the majority of people over the next two years,” he said.

O’Brien said Arviat is now in line for its own dentist, doctor and birthing centre.

“The community is growing so fast – it’s 2,200 people now,” O’Brien said, up from 1,800 not long ago due the creation of 80 new decentralized jobs in the community and the annual birth rate that sees 80 new babies a year in the community. “It’s growing beyond our resources that we have.”

O’Brien said his constituents are concerned about jobs, health care and training.

“These are issues that we’ve spoken about for a number of years,” O’Brien said. “They want to see the continuation of the effort to build a road between this community and Manitoba.”

O’Brien said he’s confident more economic opportunities and possibilities for training will open up in the next few years when mining comes to Baker Lake and Rankin Inlet.