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Arvaluk wins byelection

“If they wanted me, let them have me.”

JOHN THOMPSON

James Arvaluk is once again a member of Nunavut’s legislative assembly, after winning the byelection for the Tunnuniq riding this past Monday.

The last time Arvaluk sat as an MLA was in 2003, when he was Nunavut’s education minister. But Arvaluk resigned in disgrace that year, following a conviction for assaulting his former girlfriend.

That charge dated back to Aug. 2000 in Coral Harbour, and left the assaulted woman with a 14-stick gash to the inside of her lower lip, and permanent nerve damage to her face.

In January 2004, Arvaluk was sentenced to nine months in prison for the attack.

But Arvaluk’s criminal past did not deter voters of Pond Inlet, the sole community within the Tunnuniq riding. This Tuesday, residents there cast 206 ballots for Arvaluk, allowing him to beat out contender Rhoda Cunningham, who received 150 ballots.

“People kept telling me, let bygones be bygones. We know all about your life. You have to pick up the pieces and move on,” Arvaluk said in an interview this Tuesday.

Arvaluk said since moving to Pond Inlet less than three years ago, residents have asked him to become involved in politics. He currently sits on the boards of the local hunters and trappers organization and the co-op, and he holds a seat on hamlet council.

“They didn’t waste time when I got here, for these positions,” he said. “If they wanted me, let them have me.”

Trailing far behind Arvaluk and Cunningham in the election were two other candidates: Joseph Krimmerdjuar, who received 68 votes, and Sam Omik, who received 53.

In all, 73.61 per cent of eligible voters cast ballots.

When the legislature reconvenes next month, Arvaluk said his first order of business will be to call for the relocation of the Baffin medical health travel centre, from Pangnirtung back to Iqaluit. He said he’s heard too many stories of upset residents who miss flights due to mix-ups caused by the health department.

“Decentralization is good, but not at the expense of the citizens,” he said.

He will also push for better infrastructure in Pond Inlet, such as a harbour and an improved airstrip located in a better place. The Pond Inlet airstrip now sits in the middle of town.

And Arvaluk wants to see more community involvement in the sentencing of criminals, and alternatives that would permit convicts to serve sentences in their home communities.

Arvaluk’s 2003 conviction of assault wasn’t the first time he spent time in jail for abusing women. During the 1990s he spent two and a half years in prison for sexually assaulting a woman he invited to a hot tub party at his Yellowknife home in 1995.

At that time, Arvaluk was still MLA for the Aivilik constituency in the assembly of the Northwest Territories. For a term, he had served as the NWT’s minister of education, but Arvaluk left cabinet after being investigated for another sexual assault, alleged to have occurred in 1980 in Rankin Inlet.

The byelection was held to replace Jobie Nutaraq, who died in a hunting accident in April.

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