Hunter Tootoo walks with Justin Trudeau and his family along the shores of Frobisher Bay, October 10, 2015, in Iqaluit.Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press
Hunter Tootoo's desire to represent the riding of Nunavut in the House of Commons was slow to develop. But, like others among the new and expanded cohort of indigenous MPs, he says his disillusionment with the policies of the former Conservative government convinced him he had to run.
A 14-year veteran of Nunavut's territorial legislature and the cousin of hockey star Jordin Tootoo, Mr. Tootoo expected both the Liberals and the New Democrats to ask him to be their candidate in the 2015 election. NDP officials might have reasonably assumed they had first dibs – he ran federally for that party in 1997 and finished third.
But Mr. Tootoo, an Inuk who was born in Rankin Inlet, says he had been impressed with Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party platform for some time, and had come to the conclusion that Mr. Trudeau offered the best commitments for people of the North.
Mr. Tootoo said on Thursday in a telephone interview that he was happy with his life outside politics since deciding not to seek re-election for his territorial seat in 2013. He was an executive at Canadian North airlines and the chair of the Nunavut Planning Commission.
So, when the Liberals first came calling, he volunteered to help behind the scenes but told them to look elsewhere for a name to put on the ballot.
But the ruling Conservatives, who were represented in Nunavut by two-term MP and cabinet minister Leona Aglukkaq, had frustrated him, he said. The federal program that aims to offset the high costs of food for people living in the North was fraught with problems, and Nunavut was in dire need of infrastructure, Mr. Tootoo said.
When Mr. Trudeau called on him personally in March, he had a change of heart. "Dealing with the federal government and seeing what they were doing, I just couldn't sit back and watch it continue without trying to do something about it."
Ms. Aglukkaq, who is also Inuit, had a well-organized electoral machine. But Mr. Tootoo said he was not afraid of taking her on. "I knew, just from talking to people, people wanted change and they just needed to have a strong candidate run and that would happen," he said.
Mr. Tootoo is among 10 indigenous MPs elected last week. That is a Canadian record, and three more than the number who won seats in 2011. Mr. Tootoo is one of two Inuit people – the other is Liberal MP Yvonne Jones, who represents Labrador. There are also three Métis and five First Nations members.
The Liberal indigenous caucus is the largest, with eight MPs. The new Democrats have two. The Conservatives, who had four indigenous MPs in the previous Parliament, now have none after two chose not to run again and the other two were defeated.
After years of a deteriorating relationship with the Conservative government of Stephen Harper, and the rise of loosely knit protest groups such as Idle No More, indigenous leaders worked hard to persuade their people to vote. Organized campaigns such as Rock the Vote were created with the same intent.
Their efforts appear to have paid off. The vote in some aboriginal communities doubled and nearly tripled over that of 2011. Some polling stations on reserves were reported to have run out of ballots. And now, Parliament has more indigenous voices.
Dan Vandal, a former city councillor in Winnipeg who was born into a Métis family and whose grandfather fought alongside Louis Riel, is one of them. Mr. Vandal is now the Liberal MP for Saint Boniface-Saint Vital in Manitoba.
"I think we have a unique perspective, for sure," Mr. Vandal said of indigenous politicians. A strong sense existed among indigenous people that the Conservative government was hurting their communities, he said. The feeling was that "we need to fight back, we need to get involved. So all of that sort of melded together."
Mr. Tootoo said indigenous people have a different vantage point to that of other Canadians, especially when it comes to their own issues. As a result of last week's vote, he said, "more of that perspective that can come to the table from aboriginal people who know what they're talking about first-hand, people who have lived it, that makes a big difference."