Nunavut’s non-debate

The five candidates contesting Nunavut in the Jan. 23 federal election took part in a “forum” this week — at least, that’s how the event was billed.

But with one exception, the three-hour exercise was a utter failure for which the candidates themselves must carry most, if not all of the blame. And it’s what the candidates didn’t say, rather than what they did say, that is the most significant.

Here’s a short list of some of the issues that received little or no discussion:

• Global warming and the Kyoto Accord. For the past two years, this has been presented as a life-and-death issue for the people of the Arctic. Since it involves an international treaty, and other forms of multilateral co-operation, it’s an issue on which the federal government must take the lead. Why was Green Party candidate Feliks Kappi the only federal candidate to say anything about it?

• The devolution of federal control over public lands and resources, with a non-renewable resource revenue-sharing agreement between Nunavut and Ottawa. This is not only a step towards financial independence for the Government of Nunavut; it’s a step towards political independence. But our federal candidates have nothing to say about it.

• The failed implementation contract negotiations between Nunavut Tunngavuk Inc. and the federal government. It may be true that some of the administrative issues dividing the two sides are not relevant to most ordinary people, but there’s one issue that is: the NTI-GN proposal to spend $10 to $20 million of federal money on job training for Inuit. Our federal candidates, however, have nothing to say about this issue.

• A deep-sea port for Iqaluit. Iqaluit City Council worked on this idea all last year, vowing to make it a federal election issue. They succeeded, when Conservative leader Stephen Harper announced in late December that a Conservative government would build a deep-sea port in Iqaluit, for military and civilian use. Such a development would benefit the entire Baffin region, especially south Baffin, and give Nunavut an essential piece of infrastructure. But not even the Conservative candidate, David Aglukark, bothered to mention it during this week’s radio debate, held in a room full of Iqaluit voters.

The highlight of the evening, as it were, was a revelation from Bill Riddell, the NDP candidate.

He produced a Revenue Canada document that appears to contain a bombshell — that all Iqaluit workers living in staff housing must now pay income tax on the value of their rent subsidies, as of 2005. If it’s true, and that’s a big “if” right now, many wage-earners in Iqaluit would end up paying many thousands of dollars more on their income tax bill. And some employers will have to redo their T-4 slips for 2005, an administrative nightmare.

This may well turn out to be a standard-issue bureaucratic screw-up — an error or oversight that will soon be corrected.

But it does point out yet another issue that no candidate has bothered to discuss: the northern tax regime. As the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami pointed out several years ago, the tax system is an excellent tool, potentially, for helping northern residents cope with living costs that are now unbearable.

The Northern Residents Tax Deduction, worth up to $5,475 a year, hasn’t changed since 1985, when it was introduced to compensate people for the introduction of a policy that brought an end to tax-free northern benefits.

Since then, the cost of living has soared, especially in the eastern Arctic, where the entire Nunavut project has turned sour. A doubling of the northern tax benefit, coupled with a loosening of eligibility for it, would allow wage-earners to keep more of the money they earn. It could effectively eliminate income tax for many low-income people.

But whenever a federal election is held, no one bothers to raise the issue. It’s no wonder that voter turnouts are now dropping to the 40-per-cent level. It’s our politicians who are making politics irrelevant. JB