Two throat singers open the celebration at Lori Idlout’s campaign headquarters in Iqaluit.
The singers are her daughters Mylena and Crystal Idlout-Mullin.
“I am very excited,” Idlout says. “I’ve been saying I’m nervous and excited up to this point but I think it’s safe to say that I’m quite excited now.”
Idlout is an entrepreneur who founded several Nunavut businesses.
She went to law school as an adult and until elected, was a practicing lawyer in Nunavut.
As a lawyer, she represented the Inuit protestors who blocked access to the Mary River Iron Ore mine.
Her only other elected offices before this one were two stints on the Iqaluit District Education Authority, Iqaluit’s schoolboard.
Now’s she’s heading to Ottawa with the weight of Nunavut’s needs on her shoulders.
“The main priorities are, not surprising, are housing, mental health and just really making sure we are doing better for Nunavummiut,” she says.
Idlout is the fifth MP in Nunavut, the largest riding in the country, since it became its own territory in 1999 and holds it for the NDP.
Mumilaq Qaqqaq who won the riding in 2019, resigned her seat saying, among other things, she didn’t feel comfortable in the House of Commons.
