Last month the NIC released a report outlining 12 options it is considering for the selection of a premier. The report weighed the pros and cons of each option and included a number of related issues.
Among the issues is the question of whether the NIC should be troubling itself with the process at all, or whether Nunavut’s first duly elected government should decide how to select a premier.
The 12 options the commission is considering include variations on three basic formats:
“There aren’t any formal timelines (for the commission’s recommendations),” said Larry Elkin, a NIC consultant who helped write the report. “But very clearly a decision on that will need to be made in the very near future.
“We have to have answers on these things before the electoral boundaries commission can do their job.”
The recommendations will be reviewed by the federal government, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (the land claim administration body created in the Nunavut Agreement) and the territorial government.
“I personally favour the separate election of a premier, because that person would have direct accountability to the people of Nunavut,” said commissioner Peter Ernerk.
He added the minister should have the right to appoint and fire ministers.
No such system has been used in Canada. Typically, the voting public has no say in the selection of the leader, beyond electing those who will make the decision.
Ernerk said one of the commission’s priorities in formulating recommendations is to gather as much public input as possible.
“We’d like to see this government made in Nunavut, not the way the GNWT was created in 1967,” he said.
The NIC discussed the report at two meetings before releasing it, said Elkin. The commission next meets in mid-September.