Nunavut MP Lori Idlout ‘humbled’ by narrow victory, says NDP hasn’t lost its voice

Idlout said crossing the floor to the Liberals is ‘very difficult’ to consider

Nunavut’s NDP MP Lori Idlout, who was among the last to find out on Tuesday that she was re-elected to the House of Commons, said she’s “humbled” by her narrow victory in the federal election.

Idlout finished with 2,945 votes, just 77 more than Liberal candidate Kilikvak Kabloona’s 2,868 votes. This will be Idlout’s second term as an MP.

“I will use this opportunity to make sure that everyone who wanted to be heard still feel heard,” Idlout said, adding that her party – though it’s lost official status – hasn’t lost its voice.

“We still have a lot of power with this being a minority government. [The Liberals] will still have to work with us if they want their laws, their budgets, to pass, because they can’t do it with the size of the opposition party.”

Will continue to advocate for Nunavut issues 

Idlout said one of her first priorities is to find a new campaign office – hers had been at 1088 Noble House in Iqaluit, which burned down at the start of the year.

She also said she’d be more aggressive in Ottawa as a way of advancing her top priority of getting more resources for Nunavut.

“That has to be our focus all the time because we’ve been neglected for too long,” she said.

“With this being a minority government, who knows — we might only have a short term with this government. So I’ll have to try and be efficient in getting more resources from them.”

Idlout has said that she does not want to run for leadership of the federal NDP now that Jagmeet Singh has stepped down. She also said that if enough Nunavummiut demand it, she’ll have to consider crossing the floor to the Liberals. But, she said, it was tough to think about. 

“Having watched the many years of broken promises by the Liberals and how the Liberals for … all these decades, not just the times that they were in government, not make Indigenous peoples a priority.

“It really is very difficult for me to consider it.”

Related stories from around the North: 

Canada: Elections Canada apologizes to Nunavik voters left out of vote, Eye on the Arctic