Nunavut News/North
Published Monday, June 25, 2018
THE ISSUE: QUASSA OUSTED
WE SAY: HE DIDN'T HAVE A CHANCE
Judging by the looks on the faces of those who voted to oust Premier Paul Quassa, they knew this was no mercy killing. It was murder and they were guilty as hell.
Except for one. Joe Savikataaq had a smile to light up the room and he flashed it when he voted for himself and it stayed for the rest of the day. He continues to do so.
You would, too, if you spent the last seven months in purgatory.
This is a man who wanted – and many expected – to win the premiership in November. With Peter Taptuna's retirement, it was Savikataaq's turn to take the stage.
But, with a new cast of MLAs, anything is possible and the unexpected happened. They supported the elder statesman, Paul Quassa, who won despite the tarnish of supporting at all costs the unpopular Education Bill 37.
Quassa's election was a chance for a man who helped negotiate the creation of Nunavut to provide his vision for the future of the territory. He promised to bring more Inuit into government and to strengthen Inuktitut.
Non-Inuit deputy ministers and their minions started to worry about their positions and with good reason. Within days, top bureaucrat Chris D'Arcy was out the door, as were several non-Inuit deputy ministers.
Add to that Quassa's plan to make the remaining senior bureaucrats learn Inuktitut – God forbid they try – and they were left wishing Keith Peterson was running the show again.
And this was probably Quassa's biggest mistake: underestimating Peterson's long shadow in Nunavut's government.
Finance Minister David Akeeagok's bombshell that Peterson had left a $39 million deficit for 2017-18, not the $2 million surplus predicted, was a massive blemish on Peterson's legacy as a responsible manager of the public purse. Then the government pulled out of Grays Bay, the Kitikmeot project Peterson and Taptuna backed.
Soon after, Quassa's inner circle started to turn on him. He was in trouble well before Thursday's vote.
The MLAs spoke of autocratic rule, of a man who didn't fulfil his promises despite the fact he had barely been given a chance to do so.
But, then they said nothing in particular triggered the vote. That Nunavummiut wouldn't understand.
They latched on to the Northern Lights trade show and his decision to take an entourage of ministers and bureaucrats to the nation's capital at a cost of $572,000. Yet no one brought up the $29-million deficit projected for this year.
The MLAs hammered into the ministers about being pressured to join the Northern Lights trip. "Were you directed to go...?" Their own jobs at risk, suddenly all but one of the ministers were ready to vote Quassa out.
They had no choice. That's politics.
It's nothing personal, the MLAs all kept saying.
It seemed so clean, but it's getting messy.
Because when your first move as premier is to fire former premier Paul Okalik as devolution negotiator before he can collect his first paycheque, you need to worry about the fallout with NTI, where his wife is president.
And when Quassa's newly-hired Inuk press secretary also gets the boot, you have to wonder about the new leader's views on Inuit employment.
Quassa may not have been the right man for the job, but his compass was pointing in the right direction.
Hopefully his replacement will stop looking to the shadows and find a path we can all follow.