Home page

Text size

E-mail this page

NUNAVUT - Of the 17 new members elected to Nunavut's legislative assembly so far, only one is a woman.

"I was floored. I was very surprised and disappointed," said Eva Aariak, recently elected as the MLA for Iqaluit East.

Eva Aariak is the lone female MLA elected to the legislative assembly in Nunavut. She won her riding of Iqaluit East with 62.8 per cent of the vote. - Karen Mackenzie/NNSL photo

Only nine out of 40 candidates running on Oct. 27 were women, after Iqaluit Centre candidate Okalik Eegeesiak's name was struck from the ballot for not meeting residency requirements.

Aariak, who won with about 63 per cent of the vote, said she believes it will take a lot more support if the current levels of representation are to change.

"Many women in the communities across Nunavut are the breadwinners in a home. They have a lot of things on their plate, as a mother in a home, also working outside of their home," she said. "There's just not enough support for them, let alone the lack of daycare facilities at this time, which is a crisis that does not ease the situation."

These are issues Qulliit Nunavut Status of Women has been advocating for some time, according to Neevee Wilkins, the organization's acting president.

"Qulliit is definitely seeing that the glass ceiling is still in place in Nunavut," she said. "We're very proud to have Eva Aariak elected - she is a wonderful, strong and independent woman, former languages commissioner, small business owner - but it's a situation where we have only 5.3 per cent of the representation now in the legislative assembly."

This, she said, places Nunavut at the bottom rung of North American states, provinces and territories.

The issue of gender parity was raised in the years just before Nunavut's creation.

In May 1997, Nunavummiut were asked in a plebiscite, "Should the first Nunavut legislative assembly have equal numbers of men and women MLAs, with one man and one woman elected to represent each electoral district?"

Fifty-seven per cent of voters cast ballots against the system, with 43 per cent voting in favour.

Only 39 per cent of those eligible voted.

Gender parity is just one of the ideas that could be re-visited, according to Aariak.

"I really don't think there is one answer in this ongoing situation we are in, because it has been like this (in the legislative assembly) since the beginning," she said.

Cathy Towtongie, the first and only female president of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., said the problem goes back much further than the present public government.

"In the small and large communities Inuit organizations were in existence before the governments as we know now, and there have always been men in power, and the women were not given the experience in a political environment," she said. "A lot of Inuit, even the women, still feel that a woman is not capable of running a multi-million dollar organization."

Towtongie, whose sister Manitok Thompson was the first woman elected to the Nunavut legislative assembly, said she may return to politics someday in the future.

Inuit organizations, local committees and boards are a great place for women to start to gain experience, Aariak said.

Aariak said she got her start on the recreation committee in Arctic Bay as a teenager.

"I have been involved in a committee of some sort since then," she said. "These are areas that are easier for women to accommodate, because they only travel for a week, or two-, three-day meetings at a stretch. We should be seeing more women in these groups, and from there they could gain experience and move into any other position, including the legislative assembly."

But the number of women holding elected positions in Inuit organizations remains low as well.

Sheena Qaunaq of Arctic Bay is one of only two women holding elected positions on the 19-member board of the Qikiqtani Inuit Association. (A third woman holds an appointed position.)

In order to work full-time, the mother of two leaves her two-year-old son at home with her common-law partner.

"We have no daycare in Arctic Bay, so my common-law has to stay home full-time. Finances are pretty tight, but I'd rather have my son home than with someone else," she said.

Nunavut has traditionally had a woman as its federal representative, however.

Former MLA Leona Aglukkaq was recently announced as the new federal minister of health, following her election as Nunavut's newest member of Parliament.

She was preceded by Nancy Karetak-Lindell.