Appoint another Inuit senator, group exhorts Harper

Canada's Inuit organization is asking Prime Minister Stephen Harper to appoint another Inuk to the Senate to succeed departing Nunavut senator Willie Adams.

Adams retired June 22, when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 75. He was appointed to the Senate in 1977 by then prime minister Pierre Trudeau.

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami has written to Harper asking him to fill the vacant Nunavut seat with another senator of Inuit heritage.

"Willie Adams has done a phenomenal job representing… all Inuit for 32 years," ITK president Mary Simon told CBC News on Monday. "We hope he will be replaced soon, and by an Inuk.

"Nunavut has the majority of [the] population of the Inuit, so you know, it makes sense that he would be replaced by somebody from Nunavut."

About 85 per cent of Nunavut's population self-identifies as Inuit, according to census figures.

The only Inuk currently in the Senate is Quebecer Charlie Watt, 65, who was appointed by Trudeau in 1981.

Party politics are usually involved in senatorial appointments, meaning newly picked senators tend to be linked to the party in power in Ottawa.

But some Nunavut leaders, including Kivalliq Inuit Association president Jose Kusugak, say whoever represents the territory in the upper chamber should also be fluent in the Inuktitut language.

"Anytime we get a little acceptance of an aboriginal language like Inuktitut, and so on, it does help," Kusugak said.

Peter Irniq, a former commissioner of Nunavut, said Conservative MP and Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, along with other Inuit leaders, should lobby the government for a senator who speaks Inuktitut and one of the other Inuit dialects spoken in Nunavut.

But while Simon said it would be great for a senator to speak Inuktitut, fluency should not be mandatory.

Some Inuit have lost their knowledge of the Inuit language in residential schools or elsewhere and should not be penalized, she said.

Harper last appointed senators — 18 of them — in December, even though he had previously said he would not appoint any more.

The Prime Minister's Office did not respond to a request for comment Monday.