Who will run for parliament in the Nunavut riding?

As of right now (as far as I know), there are  no candidates lined up to compete against Minister of Health Leona Aglukkaq  in the riding of Nunavut.  Neither the NDP nor the Liberals have been able to find a candidate so far although the Greens had a candidate initially, but he withdrew from the race shortly after being announced.  

So at this point it doesn't seem likely that anyone is going to be able to put up a decent challenge to Aglukkaq in this riding despite several websites predicting that this will be a "race to watch."  In 2008 Aglukkaq won by 5.5% with about 35% of the vote.  I expect the margin to be a little bigger this time.

Minister Aglukkaq (Shown here preparing to slap political opponents)

SFUO Elections

Tomorrow is the last day of elections for the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa.

Lets all face some facts here: if you haven't voted yet, odds are you don't really care who gets elected.  If you cared that much you would have voted already.  Tomorrow you're going to see candidates running around telling people to vote for them in a last minute attempt to clinch the election.   I recommend you do what they say.

Allow me to explain:

A good work ethic is probably at least as important as a good platform for a member of student government, and what better way to test work ethic than a frantic race around campus, petitioning undecideds?  So if you have no knowledge of any of the platforms, just vote for whoever gets to you first.  If nothing else, at least we can have a hard working student government.
 

Iqaluit Mayoral Bi-elections!

My home town of Iqaluit, Nunavut will be electing a new mayor on Tuesday.  Here's a story about it that CBC wrote up the other day: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2010/12/08/iqaluit-mayoral-forum.html

Iqaluit (Photo courtesy of Joyce Tannouri)

As a mayoral election in one of Canada's thirteen capital cities you would think it would get more media attention.  Although, on the other hand, as capital of its least populous territory, Canadians probably care less about this election than Americans care about who the mayor of the capital city of Guam will be.  Although, on the third hand, I don't believe Guam receives quite as much money from the central government as Nunavut does.  On the fourth hand, the mayorship of Iqaluit doesn't have much to do with that money.  I could go on like this all day.  Also: was everyone aware that people from Guam are called Guamanians?  I digress.

The important issues in this election seem to be mainly waste management, housing, and those posts that separate foot traffic from regular traffic.  Why can't they build sidewalks, people ask?  Also: why can't they get one of those sidewalk sized snowblower things to clear them with, people ask?  I'm not sure that these posts have really been discussed in the campaign, but I just find it ridiculous that a Canadian capital city can't install a few sidewalks.

Check in next week for the thrilling conclusion of "Iqaluit Mayoral Bi-elections!"