Bérubé, Gull-Masty in see-saw battle for Nunavik where ‘confusion’ led to some voters getting left out

Voters across Nunavut, Nunavik and the rest of Canada are voting today to elect a new federal government. (Cedric Gallant)

Election day in Nunavik has turned into “a whole bunch of confusion,” says one regional councillor.

As the rest of Canada voted to elect a new federal government, in Nunavik one community’s polling station still hadn’t opened by late afternoon.

Nunavik is part of Quebec’s Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou riding, which takes up about a one-third of the province’s map.

The riding has a population of 89,087 and there are 65,833 registered voters, Elections Canada says.

The riding has been represented by Bloc Québécois MP Sylvie Bérubé since 2019.

At midnight, Liberal Mandy Gull-Masty had retaken the lead in a see-saw battle with Bloc Québécois MP Sylvie Bérubé.

Gull-Masty had 7,577 votes compared to Bérubé’s 7,290 and Conservative Steve Corriveau’s 5,186.

The NDP’s Thai Higashihara had 517 votes.

Nearly half of polls — 150 of 214 — had reported results.

At 9:50 p.m., Elections Canada showed Bérubé leading with 655 votes over Gull-Masty’s 594 votes and Conservative Steve Corriveau’s 374, and New Democrat Thai Higashihara’s 45.

Fewer than five per cent of polls had reported.

Another village saw its polling station closed after just two hours, while several other communities relied on a shared election staff to keep polling stations open for less than eight hours.

“We need help urgently,” Ivujivik Mayor Adamie Kalingo said in a phone interview.

In his community of just over 400 residents at the northern tip of Quebec, the only polling station still hadn’t opened as of 3:30 p.m.

“We have no election papers, or anything like that,” Kalingo said. “I am trying to know what is going on.”

He said that at election time, a plane or helicopter is supposed to deliver materials such as ballots and ballot boxes.

A chartered plane did come in with Elections Canada workers on board, Kalingo said — but they didn’t bring the election materials.

He said he gave the Elections Canada workers his and his staff’s phone numbers, adding he has corresponded with them.

“I don’t know what else I can do,” he said.

According to the Elections Canada website, polls in the eastern time zone including Nunavik are to be open Monday from 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

In a French interview late Monday afternoon, Elections Canada media representative Serge Fleyfel said he didn’t have much information to offer.

“From what I know, planes were sent and polling stations were installed, but no one came,” he said, noting that in one instance a polling station was opened in a store but the store closed at noon.

He said he was still unable to make contact with Luc Bédard, the election returning officer for Abitibi–Baie-James–Nunavik–Eeyou riding, as of 4:30 p.m. Monday.

In Salluit, the polling station opened four hours late, then closed after just two hours.

“They told people who were in line at 2:30 p.m. that they were closing the poll because they had to get on the airplane,” Salluit regional councillor Stephen Grasser said in a phone interview, referring to the election workers.

“Since when do weather conditions trump the ability to vote?”

Grasser said he intends to keep digging for answers, adding no messages were sent to the community to say when the polling station would open or close.

“A whole bunch of confusion,” is how he described the election day situation in Salluit.

Mandy Gull-Masty, the Liberal candidate in the Abitibi–Baie-James–Nunavik–Eeyou riding, posted on Facebook saying five villages in Nunavik have local workers staffing polling stations: Aupaluk, Kangiqsualujjuaq, Kuujjuaq, Inukjuak and Kuujjuaraapik.

She said the nine remaining communities have a “travelling poll staff” that would run polling stations being open from 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

This includes Akulivik, Kangirsuk, Puvirnituq, Quaqtaq, Ivujivik, Umiujaq, Salluit, Kangiqsujuaq and Tasiujaq.

Elia Lauzon, who is originally from Kuujjuaq but is travelling to Puvirnituq for work, said she wanted to cast her vote but was turned away by poll workers at around 2:30 p.m.

Lauzon said she was told by Elections Canada workers that they had leave in order to catch their flight home.

“It was done in a hurry,” she said in a phone interview. “There was a whole host of people outside, people trying to go vote.”

“They are literally throwing our votes away” by closing the poll early, she said.

“It is the only way I get to participate in a democracy, supposedly, and I am not even able to do that because they wanted to fly out right away.”

Lauzon said the workers told her they were concerned by the weather and wanted to leave while they could.

She is staying at the hotel due to work, she said, and knows there were rooms available.

“They could have stayed overnight at least,” she said, adding numerous community members told her they were caught off guard by the polling station’s unusual hours as they had planned to vote after their work shift ended.