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Qulliit seeks ban on MLAs convicted of violence

Organization inundated with angry phone calls after re-election of James Arvaluk

JOHN THOMPSON

James Arvaluk is sworn in by Commissioner Ann Hanson Nov. 21 in Iqaluit. (PHOTO BY JOHN THOMPSON)

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The council is reviewing legislation, and its board of directors plan to meet this weekend to come up with suggestions on how to toughen up the laws.

Right now, any MLA convicted of a criminal offence must sit out the next election. But after that time, they may run for election again.

Likewise, the Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act states that any member convicted by summary conviction, rather than indictment, may keep his or her seat, unless they are removed by MLAs.

The call for tougher rules to keep convicted MLAs out of the House is prompted by the recent re-election of James Arvaluk, MLA for Tunnuniq, this October.

Since Arvaluk’s re-election, Qulliit has been flooded with phone calls from upset residents around the territory, a Qulliit spokesperson said.

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 dates back to Aug. 2000 in Coral Harbour, and left the assaulted woman with a 14-stitch 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. At the time, a court judge scolded him for showing no remorse for his actions, and for being in denial over his drinking problems.

When Arvaluk returned to the legislature this month, he rose during members’ statements to say, “I believe that we need to take personal responsibility for our actions.”

But Arvaluk did not mention his history of abusing women. Nor did he say whether he still drinks – despite the fact that all of Arvaluk’s past convictions happened while he was drunk.

Arvaluk only said he appreciated advice given to him by friends and family “addressing a number of personal issues, which I have struggled with for many years, going back to my days in residential school.”

Arvaluk then went on to list the roles he’s played with Pond inlet’s Hunters and Trappers’ Association, Hamlet Council and Co-op since moving to the community several years ago.

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.

Arvaluk isn’t Nunavut’s only MLA with a criminal history of assaulting women. Levi Barnabas, MLA for the High Arctic, was convicted in August 2000 for sexual assault.

That charge dates back to March that year, during a long night of drinking with two women in Iqaluit, after Barnabas was invited back to the home of one woman and her husband.

After going to sleep for the night alone in her own room, the woman woke up to find Barnabas on top of her, fondling her breasts. The woman’s underwear was pulled down, and Barnabas was trying to penetrate her with his penis.

When she resisted Barnabas left, followed by the woman’s angry husband, who chased the MLA away with a baseball bat.

Barnabas received a 12-month conditional sentence. He first resigned as speaker of the house, then gave up his seat at the assembly. But Barnabas again ran for office, and was re-elected, in 2004.

Unlike Arvaluk, Barnabas did offer an apology in the legislature for his actions, and announced he would stop drinking. In response, other members gave him a standing ovation.

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