Housing, mental health and hazardous dust top of mind for Aivilik candidates

Nunatsiaq News is publishing riding profiles ahead of the Oct. 27 territorial election. Keep your eye on our website to learn more about who is running in your area.

The former secretary treasurer of Kivalliq Inuit Association is the sole challenger of incumbent MLA Solomon Malliki for the Aivilik seat at the legislative assembly.

The Aivilik riding represents two of the most western communities in the Kivalliq Region: Coral Harbour and Naujaat, with a total population of 2,260.

Hannah Angootealuk is running against Malliki. She says one of the main issues her community of Coral Harbour faces is a lack of mental health services.

“Often when someone needs help mentally, they have to go south and stay there,” she said.

“They could have been home with family, eating their traditional food.”

Also, dust on the unpaved road of Coral Harbour chokes the community in the summers and is a real “health hazard,” Angootealuk said.

“We’ve been trying to mention this for years, but nothing [has] happened,” she said.

As a Coral Harbour resident, she said she is more familiar with the issues in her home community but she will talk to the Naujaat hamlet council to familiarize herself with the concerns in that community as well.

Angootealuk is a mother of five and a grandmother of 20. She has been Coral Harbour’s representative for Kivalliq Inuit Association, the entity responsible for promoting the rights of Kivalliq Inuit, for six years.

She also briefly sat as the organization’s secretary-treasurer and for more than 20 years has volunteered with the community’s search and rescue operations.

In 2007, she was hired to travel across Inuit communities with the Inuit health survey conducted by the Nunavut government and federal government, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. and several universities.

Malliki is a resident of Naujaat, running for re-election after one term as MLA.

“Four years seem to be long, but when you’re actually working as an MLA it’s a very short time,” he said.

“I feel like I can do much more.”

Malliki’s top priority if he gets re-elected is to alleviate the housing shortage. He wants to “expedite” housing construction.

“Last government put lots of emphasis on housing, but only 18 units were built in [the term of] the last assembly,” he said.

He said Coral Harbour and Naujaat face issues similar to other Nunavut communities, like high rates of suicide and problems relating to medical travel.

Malliki said the previous government has conducted many studies on these Nunavut-wide issues and it’s time for the government to “make use” of them.

A father of five and owner of an outfitting business in Naujaat, Malliki was the chair of the regular members’ caucus at the legislative assembly during his first term.

He was the one to raise the motion during the previous government to oust Premier P.J. Akeeagok.

“It is what it is,” he said, adding that he hasn’t been thinking about his failed attempt to remove the premier.