Women seek admission to men’s club

PATRICIA D’SOUZA

In the five years since Nunavut’s first election, women have made few gains in the political realm.

Ten women are running for nine seats in Monday’s election, no real change from the 1999 campaign, in which 11 women competed for eight seats in the territory’s 19-seat legislative assembly.

In this election, as in the last, almost every female candidate would have to be elected for the assembly to reach proportional representation.

In 1999, however, only one woman, Manitok Thompson in Rankin Inlet South-Whale Cove, won a seat. Rebekah Williams joined her about two years later after a by-election in Quttiktuq.

Yet in this election, as in the last, most of the women who have stepped forward as candidates have been well-known and well-respected members of their communities, and probably some of the most qualified to run the territory, if not the most popular.

The Nunavut Implementation Commission sought to prevent just this situation when it introduced its controversial gender parity plan in 1995. The proposal aimed to guarantee equal representation for men and women in the Nunavut legislature.

If it had passed, voters would have cast two ballots – one from a list of male candidates and one from a list of female candidates.

But the idea of two-member constituencies was soundly rejected in a May 1997 plebiscite. Fifty-seven per cent of voters said no to the plan, though the plebiscite drew only 39 per cent of eligible voters to the polls.

“The yes side was painting a picture that we had to have a man and a woman, but the no side said it doesn’t matter as long as we have good representation,” Theresie Tungilik, a vocal opponent of the proposal, said at the time.

But during the past few weeks of the campaign, and possibly even longer, residents in many constituencies have been wondering if what they’ve had for the past five years can really be described as “good representation.”

Emily Beardsall, the justice and wellness coordinator in Coral Harbour, is running in Nanulik against three men, including the incumbent, Patter Netser, who won a by-election this past September.

Beardsall said she made her decision to run in the general election about three months ago, coincidentally, just as MLAs were fiercely debating the human rights act in the legislative assembly, and just as the residents of Coral Harbour and Chesterfield Inlet got to see what their new MLA had to say on the topic.

“I also believe in God, but I don’t believe in thrusting him down people’s throats,” Beardsall said in an interview this week.

“I respect people and I respect their rights and I can’t say that gays and lesbians are bad people. It is foreign to me, but I cannot say they are bad people.”

She said she suspects other women probably reacted the same way to the human rights debate and other legislative assembly fiascos.

“I think we got worried,” she said. “I think men’s views and women’s views are quite different at times.”

Leona Aglukkaq, who is on leave from her job as deputy minister of the department of culture, language, elders and youth, said gender has not been much of an issue in her campaign. Aglukkaq is facing off against five women in the Nattilik riding, which takes in Gjoa Haven and Taloyoak.

“I haven’t tried to make this a woman-male candidacy,” said, though she acknowledged that women in Nunavut have generally shown little interest in running for elected office.

“It would be good to have more women in the House,” she said.