Manon Tremblay and Jackie F. Steele
Dans Marian Sawer, Manon Tremblay et Linda Trimble (dir.), Representing Women in Parliament, Londres, Routledge : 221-235.
In 1999 Canada saw the addition of a third Territory to its political landscape, namely, the Territory of Nunavut, which means 'Our Land' or 'Oui-Home' in the Inuit language of Inuktitut. Situated in the Canadian Arctic, Nunavut covers over 1.9 million sq. km representing almost 20 per cent of the total area of Canada. This vast territory is inhabited by the Inuit people, whose culture and ways on the land have allowed them to live in conditions that most Canadians would consider inhospitable. Heavily dependent upon financial transfers from the federal government, the Territory of Nunavut has a mixed economy, wherein both an emergent cash economy and the relationship with the land continue to be essential. Straddling tradition and modernity, the expression of this hybrid reality can be found in the political regime of Nunavut. If the new Canadian territory maintained a privileged place for British-style parliamentary traditions, it also sought to adapt them to Inuit traditions of equality. The best example of this can be found in the proposal to retain a first-past-the-post system but to make it a two-member system that reflects the gendered duality of humanity.
An analysis of this proposal for two-member, gender-balanced representation will be the focus of this chapter. We will begin with a general profile of Nunavut, followed by an outline of the theoretical framework inspiring our analysis and the methodology employed. We will then provide a description of the proposal put forward by the Nunavut Implementation Commission. Finally, we will analyse the variables contributing to the defeat of the proposal and articulate the lessons that can be learned from this extremely rich case study.
