NUNAVUT
Heading into a Sept. 24 election debate, hosted at the Nunavut Trade Show by the Baffin Regional Chamber of Commerce, NDP federal election candidate Jack Anawak was tense.

Former Liberal MP and now a candidate for the New Democratic Party, Jack Anawak wants to bring social issues that affect all Nunavummiut to the forefront. - Casey Lessard/NNSL photo

"It doesn't matter how long you've been a politician, you're always nervous about doing anything. Even this debate, I was a bundle of nerves this morning," the former Liberal MP for Nunatsiaq said. "But once I was out there, it all came back - this is what we're pushing for, what we want to do, these are the kinds of things we want to do. I think I can outline them in a way that people can understand."

What he will push for are issues that affect regular Nunavummiut.

"A lot of people ask about Nutrition North, mental health," he said. "And up here there seems to be a lot of people from the south coming up to work on contracts for infrastructure, like high schools and others, where there doesn't seem to be enough people from up here working in those jobs that they should have. A lot of people are asking about what we're going to do on education and skills training so that people up here can get those jobs."

Anawak touted the NDP proposal to introduce $15 per day day care, an idea he says would benefit Nunavut's young population.

"A lot of people are not going into further education or jobs or careers because they can't afford to cough up day care," he said. "Both the Liberals and Conservatives talked about affordable day care, but they've never done anything about it. We have a concrete proposal to enable people who can't afford, to have that $15-a-day day care."

He plans to shed light on the housing shortage in Nunavut, especially in light of the apparent disconnect he noticed on the ground in Cambridge Bay.

"I was being driven by Charlie Lyall," he said, "and he first took me to a development that was going on. He said this was a scientific and research (CHARS), and it's all there. All the people they're going to bring up, all the houses that are going to be built (for them). Meanwhile, we have a waiting list of this many people in housing. He was telling me how unfair it seems to be for people who can't get a house."

At an open house in Iqaluit, undecided voter Catherine McGregor pointed to the infrastructure deficit in Nunavut.

"You made the point (in the past) that infrastructure should be developed the way it is in the rest of Canada," McGregor said. "We're 100-some years behind. You were saying Nunavut shouldn't have to pay for the (deep sea) port (in Iqaluit), they (the federal government) owes Nunavut the infrastructure that every other part of the country already have. We shouldn't have to argue for every project that

we need the money."

"It's like clawback," Anawak responded, critical of the way the multi-level government system works. For example, under the Conservative Iqaluit port project funding promise, Nunavut has to give $20 million from its budget to get $64 million from the feds. "We'll give the Nunavut government some money, and then we'll take it back to build a port."

So far, Anawak has taken his message to Naujaat, Rankin Inlet and Arviat. This week, he will head to Pangnirtung and Qikiqtarjuaq. He will also travel to Coral Harbour, Rankin Inlet (again), Cape Dorset, Pond Inlet, Clyde River, Hall Beach, and Iglulik, all subject to weather.

"People know who I am, the passionate stance I've taken on issues," he said, noting his support for a review of the Nutrition North program, and for reducing the small business tax rate to nine per cent from 11 per cent. "I want to pass on what the NDP is proposing, the offer of more social assistance up here, whether it's mental health, doing something about the high suicide rate, lack of housing, addressing those issues in a much more positive way than just putting it on the Government of Nunavut to do it.

"I can say that the stance I've taken has always been for the people of Nunavut," he added. "Not passing on the federal government's stance to Nunavut, but taking Nunavut's stance to the federal government."

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