Provincial election delays framework ratification

ODILE NELSON

Quebec Premier Bernard Landry’s election call this week will postpone, and possibly derail, the ratification of Nunavik’s new-government framework agreement.

Makivik Corp. and the federal and provincial governments have been negotiating the agreement, which promises to unite Nunavik’s administrative bodies into one super-organization and bring a new-government to the region, since last August.

Now that Landry has announced Quebec will go to the polls April 14, dissolving the Quebec legislature in the process, it will be at least another month before Quebec can approve the agreement.

And if the Liberal or the Action démocratique du Québec parties oust Landry’s PQ from power there is a chance framework negotiations may have to return to the beginning.

Makivik President Pita Aatami, who is up for an election of his own at the end of this month, said he is not concerned.

“I can’t say I’m disappointed. Even ourselves we had to get approval from our own boards [before presenting the document in the national assembly],” Aatami said.

Federal negotiators first predicted the agreement would be ratified in Dec. 2002. But as of press-time, the document had still not gone before Quebec’s cabinet or legislature.

Daniel Bienvenue, the negotiator for the provincial government, said the Quebec cabinet had many items to deal with and no time to ratify the agreement before the election call.

He stressed the negotiating parties are continuing to work on the agreement.

“For now [to suggest the framework agreement could die], that’s pure speculation. I’d have to first speculate on the party that would win and then on the position of the new government,” he said.

The PQ is attempting to become the first Quebec government since 1952 to win a third straight term in power. The latest polls indicate the PQ has a significant lead over the Liberals and the ADQ. Some pundits, however, are predicting a tight race between Quebec’s three political parties.