Third party politicking

During this winter’s territorial election campaign, Nunavut voters have been exposed to a relatively new phenomenon: third party forces who are working to support or oppose candidates, and to influence the choices that voters make on election day.

By “third parties,” we mean groups and organizations that aren’t actually running for office themselves – but who work to encourage the election of candidates whose views they support.

In this election, two very different groups, are, in very different ways, attempting to do just that – Nunavut’s labour movement, and Nunavut’s rapidly growing Christian fundamentalist movement.

The labour movement’s approach is the more conventional, using techniques borrowed from the South. Groups like the Northern Territories Federation of Labour, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, and the Nunavut Employees Union are donating money to candidates they favour, and are attempting to survey candidates on their views.

Nunavut’s unions aren’t just in it for themselves and their members. They’re also using the election to talk about social justice and human rights. Strong backers of Nunavut’s Human Rights Act, and the words in it that protect gays and lesbians from discrimination, they are, naturally, worried by any suggestion that the next legislative assembly might amend the human rights law to remove such protection.

These are honourable motives for getting involved in the political process.

Unfortunately, the labour movement’s actions have been incoherent and confusing. In Iqaluit West, where the cabinet minister behind the humans right act, Paul Okalik, is campaigning for re-election, one of Nunavut’s best known union officials, Doug Workman, has chosen to run against him. Granted, Workman is raising other important issues in his campaign, and insists that he’s not a “labour” candidate. But the outer walls of the NEU building in Iqaluit are festooned with Doug Workman posters, including one giant poster that’s the size of a small billboard.

Is this rational behaviour for an organization that claims to support the human rights act? It’s especially confusing when you consider that the labour movement has failed to find anyone willing to run in Rankin Inlet North against Tagak Curley, a prominent opponent of the human rights law who wants to replace Paul Okalik as Nunavut’s premier.

In Iqaluit Centre, another well-known labour activist, Mary Ellen Thomas, is also running. She’s using her candidacy to mount an articulate campaign that raises a variety of social and economic issues. She’s using the NEU office in Iqaluit during her campaign, and appears to have their support.

There’s only one problem with that. Her strongest opponent, Hunter Tootoo, was the best, and sometimes the only friend, that the labour movement had within the last legislative assembly, defending union interests during contract talks, and asking numerous questions about staff housing and VTAs – more confusion for the voters.

Perhaps the labour movement will get it right in the next territorial election.

Another group that’s likely to exert some influence over voters is Nunavut’s rapidly growing fundamentalist Christian movement, a loosely organized network of like-minded preachers, churches, and bible study groups spread across Nunavut and Nunavik. In recent years, hundreds of people from around the eastern Arctic have flocked to annual bible conferences, building alliances with one another and strengthening each other’s faith.

Unlike mainstream Christians, they believe that every single word in the Bible is literally true. They believe that God speaks to them in mystical “signs and visitations.” They believe the prophecies about the end of world contained in the Book of Revelations, and believe that we are nearly there. They believe that no other morality but theirs is the right one. Though they say they believe in the separation of church and state, they also honestly believe that it is their duty to infuse the actions of state with their values. Furthermore, they have identified their movement with “traditional” Inuit culture values.

And, as we know, they believe that homosexuality is a moral sickness, not an innate state of being, and that it can be corrected, or “healed,” through faith and other means. And so they have risen up to oppose the protection of gay and lesbian rights in the human rights act, and to oppose any suggestion that the Nunavut government should one day sanction same-sex marriages.

This is not an organized movement in the manner of the labour movement, not yet, at least. But a lot of informal politicking is done within bible conferences by groups like Prayer Canada, a southern group that promotes the election of fundamentalist Christians to public office, and by other preachers and pastors opposed to gay rights and same-sex marriage.

Will they make their presence felt at the polling stations this Monday? Only time will tell. And it’s also worth noting that many Nunavut voters are pragmatists, uncomfortable with extremist views.

Should Nunavummiut be alarmed at the rise of third-party influences within the political process?

Of course not. It’s a sign that Nunavummiut are getting wiser, a sign that elections in Nunavut really are about ideas and fundamental values. It’s a sign that elections in Nunavut are serious affairs, and not the trivial popularity contests that some people allege them to be. JB