Pick Number 9 and get on with it
Iqaluit council should fill Jack Anawak’s vacancy with the next highest vote-getter from last month’s election
Iqaluit council has a vacancy to fill less than three weeks after the last election. (File photo)
Updated on Sunday, Nov. 12, 2023 at 12 a.m.
Who should be Iqaluit’s next city councillor? Whoever is next in line, of course.
There’s no question of how Iqaluit city councillors should fill the vacancy created by Jack Anawak’s abrupt exit this week.
Pick the guy with the next highest number of votes from the Oct. 23 election and be done with it. In this case, that would be Lewis Falkiner MacKay, a Government of Nunavut employee who finished ninth in the race for council’s eight seats.
Iqaluit councillors haven’t even held their first meeting since the election, but they face the thorny question of how to fill an empty seat.
Anawak’s crash was Nov. 4. He hastily resigned Monday. The next day, the RCMP charged him with impaired driving.
Anawak, of course, is innocent until proven guilty. He has his first court date to answer to these charges in late January.
It’s well known that Anawak is a residential school survivor. If he’s suffering as a result of that, everyone should hope he gets the support he needs.
His departure from council is unfortunate. Anawak has a long, impressive history in Nunavut politics, as a former MP and former MLA. His experience would have been an asset on council.
But stepping down is the right thing for a municipal politician to do when facing serious criminal charges. Had he stayed, the charges would have been a distraction from his duties.
Nunavut’s elections law gives council two options for filling the vacancy. It can pick the person with the next highest vote count in the last election. Or council can pick anybody from within the community — even someone who didn’t run.
Since the election results are just three weeks old, they’re a good indication of the will of the people. And since MacKay, who finished in ninth place with 525 votes, was only 110 votes behind eighth-place Anawak, he had a solid enough endorsement from voters that he should fill Anawak’s spot.
In the previous term, Iqaluit council had a tendency to pick replacements from within the community whenever it had a vacancy to fill — which happened surprisingly frequently.
The city invited applications and held the equivalent of job interviews, where politicians — not the public — decided who would represent the public. That process is time-consuming and unnecessary. That’s time and energy that could have been better spent doing business that directly affects the people they serve.
It’s an insult to the democratic process to pass over candidates who put their name forward in the last election, and instead pick someone who didn’t show any interest in civic leadership.
During the election, MacKay stepped up to offer his services to his city. The right thing for council to do is to accept that offer now, appoint him to the vacancy and move forward with the running of the city.
Correction: This article has been updated from an earlier version to reflect that the Lewis Falkiner MacKay finished 110 votes behind Jack Anawak in the Oct. 23 election.
Just because someone ran for office is not a prerequisite for the position. The voters elected the people in. If one did not make the cut, that was the choice of the people. Is someone going to die if the position is not filled right away? Can the people who remain on council be unable to function without one additional member on council? Let the council request names and take the time to choose the best candidate moving forward. There is one candidate who missed the deadline because of the electoral officer mistake and I would have voted for over the losing candidate.
Or, they could correct the Elections Nunavut error and offer the position to council veteran Noah Papatsie, who they misled about the application period.
https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/iqaluit-man-says-faulty-system-prevented-his-council-bid/
Noah got 183 votes (22%) last time he ran for council, which was six years ago in 2017.
https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/65674noah_papatsie_kyle_sheppard_win_vacant_iqaluit_council_seats/
MacKay got 525 votes (41%), less than three weeks ago.
How many times has Noah run? Doesn’t seem likely that he would think the application period was two months long?
How many times has Noah run? Doesn’t seem likely that he would think the application period was two months long?
I know it’s a pedantic detail buuut, the margin between 8th (Jack) and 9th (Lewis) wasn’t 90 votes. The margin was 110, which, interestingly, was greater than the 106 vote margin between 3rd (Kyle) and 8th (Jack).
1st (Kim) to 4th (Sam) -141 votes
4th (Sam) to 9th (Lew)- 163 votes
9th (Lew) to someone who didn’t run – 525 votes
It’s hard to understand why this is even a question. They have next-in-line candidate who got a lot of votes and has shown a willingness to serve. Put him on council and get to work.
It’s a question because there is a class in Nunavut who believes they are entitled to certain benefits, advantages and special rules due to their abstract sociological status.
While I respect the freedom of expression in media, I believe that the suggestion to take the next in line Lewis Falkiner MacKay to the Iqaluit council is not in the best interest of our community. Given the unique cultural and societal needs of Iqaluit, it would be more appropriate for the council to exercise its right and appoint an Inuk individual, to replace Mr. Anawak, ensuring the representation as voted by the people remains.
It’s also important to consider that lower vote counts for some candidates, like Lewis Falkiner MacKay, could be influenced by voters choosing not to use all of their eight votes, a strategy often used when voters do not support certain candidates. This voting behavior can skew the perception of a candidate’s popularity or community support. Consequently, selecting the 9th person based solely on their ranking may not accurately reflect the community’s broader will, as it doesn’t account for the strategic voting choices made by the electorate. This highlights the complexity of interpreting election results and making appointments soley based on them.
Furthermore, I find the involvement of Mr. Larocque in this matter concerning. As a non-resident of Iqaluit, his attempt to influence the council’s decision prior to their meeting on the issue crosses the line from reporting to direct intervention in local political affairs. Journalism should aim to inform and present facts, leaving decisions and opinions to the residents and officials of the community.
In light of this, I suggest that for editorials the hiring of a local resident for writing on such critical issues. This would ensure a more representative and authentic perspective, reflecting the true spirit and concerns of Iqaluit’s residents, not a Ottawa based editor.
It is not only because he was 9th. MacKay got a larger percentage of the vote than 10 of the last 24 people put on council.
It says something really troubling about our council if that isn’t sufficient voter support.
If council does want to adopt a policy of only replacing Inuit with hand-picked Inuit, then they should have the honesty to present that position publicly. I don’t belive that undemocratic position of overruling voters would be popular among the electorate, Inuit or Non-Inuit.
Its an editorial from the Senior editor of the paper…..he clearly cares about the area of which he reports. Sick of people tagging this whole local tag to give reason reason to not agree with something. I’ve spent my whole life in Nunavut, and you know what, I agree with what Corey is saying. We just spent money on an election, its fresh, and Lewis has the votes.
I disagree with the thrust of your second paragraph and the conclusions you draw.
However, I thank you for raising an interesting issue that should probably be discussed more – the way we elect councillors amounts to an “alternative voting system” compared to a ward system – which is analogous to how we elect MPs or MLAs.
The fact that we are not obligated to vote for eight councillors, and can focus our votes on a smaller number, is interesting. It is a feature, not a bug (if it’s a bug, the system is designed very poorly).
I don’t believe we have any granular information on whether MacKay received disproportionate number of such focused votes, so your assertion is mere speculation. Maybe it skewed against MacKay? Maybe it’s a wash?
But even if it were as you suggest, your position is still very debatable. Someone who chooses to allocate their votes more sparingly is acting within the system as designed. The number of votes MacKay received relative to other candidates reflects how Iqaluit voters, collectively, allocated their scarce votes. That’s how it works – that’s the system that got us the original eight councillors (now winnowed to seven).
You can’t just discard the system’s operating principle the moment it delivers an outcome you don’t like.
>While I respect the freedom of expression in media, I believe that the suggestion to take the next in line Lewis Falkiner MacKay to the Iqaluit council is not in the best interest of our community. Given the unique cultural and societal needs of Iqaluit, it would be more appropriate for the council to exercise its right and appoint an Inuk individual, to replace Mr. Anawak, ensuring the representation as voted by the people remains.
Tell that to the Elections Act:
“Choice of appointee
(5) When filling a vacancy under subsection (3) or (4), the municipal council or district education authority shall
(a) appoint the candidate from the previous election who was not elected to that office but had the highest number of votes from among the unelected candidates, if such a candidate is available, still eligible and willing to accept the appointment; or
(b) publicly request applicants for appointment to complete an application in the approved form and appoint a person from amongthem who would be eligible to be a candidate for that office.”
All the Inuit who ran for council were elected, and there are several additional possible councillors in the election results, so what possible benefit can it bring for council to waste time on the (notably undemocratic) public appointment process?
As you pointed out as per the act council can (b) publicly request applicants for appointment to complete an application in the approved form and appoint a person from among them who would be eligible to be a candidate for that office
I sure hope they choose this option, as it is much better option! I would rather have Jack on council! What happened to innocent until proven guilty!
Jack resigned. He packed his bags and left on his own, no one made him do so.
They absolutely can, but it’s not a great start for the new council to essentially disregard the results from an election less than a month old.
For those saying ‘need to choose and Inuk to replace an Inuk’ a couple issues with that.
1) Because there is no way a true Inuk would vote for a non-Inuk right? any Inuk who didnt ONLY vote for a Inuit in the last election should not have there votes counted.
2) And if just replacing and Inuk with another Inuk for the sake of them being Inuk is like saying doesnt really matter who you are or what you have done, were all interchangeable.
The proposition is reductionist, simplistic and anti-democratic. Which is to say, it is exactly what one would expect of a ‘made in Nunavut’ solution.
And people question why I refer to Iqaluit as a hamlet.
hahaha the above comments prove my point.
Actually referring to Iqaluit as a hamlet may be to generous as each day goes by.
Perhaps it’s time to move the “Capital'” to Rankin Inlet or Cambridge Bay.