Nunavut ex-premier blasts government progress

The Nunavut legislature lit up Wednesday when Iqaluit MLA Paul Okalik the territory's former premier criticized the current government's performance to date, claiming that most of what they've done was started under his leadership.

Speaking in the legislature, Okalik pointed to a list of 42 accomplishments current Premier Eva Aariak and her cabinet published after their September retreat.

The accomplishments, which are from the first two years of Aariak's government, range from the building of a women's correctional centre in Iqaluit to various new health-care facilities.

"I must confess that in reading this list of accomplishments [it] was in some ways a pleasant trip on memory lane," Okalik said Wednesday.

Okalik said the credit for the current cabinet's work should to go the previous legislative assembly. He led that assembly from 1999 until 2008, when he lost his third premiership bid to Aariak. He remains the MLA for Iqaluit West.

"The new Kivalliq health facility, the new Pangnirtung health centre, the new medical boarding home in Iqaluit, and the new continuing care facilities in Gjoa Haven and Igloolik are all excellent projects that were all conceived of and started during the time of the previous government and legislative assembly," Okalik said.

Furthermore, he said most of what the current cabinet claims as its own accomplishments are not worth bragging about.

"It is hard to describe such routine functions of government as being visionary accomplishments worthy of our continued confidence," he said.

Outside the legislature, Okalik would not say if he has ambitions to be Nunavut's premier again.

"That's just politics," Aariak said of Okalik's speech, adding that he omitted some noteworthy details.

"I found it very interesting the fact that he never once mentioned the Nunavut Housing Trust fiasco," she said, referring to $60 million in Nunavut Housing Corp. cost overruns that began while Okalik was premier.

An additional $50-million shortfall has since been reported while Aariak has been in office. Aariak said the current financial situation has been her government's greatest constraint.

Okalik and other regular MLAs plan to hold a leadership review one that could result in changes to cabinet after the current legislative session wraps up in about two weeks' time.

"Whatever comes that day will come and whatever the outcome will be will be the outcome," Aariak said of the review.