Monsef under fire over cross-country electoral reform tour
MP Maryam Monsef and her staff took criticism on Monday after she began her cross-country tour on electoral reform in Iqaluit with a public meeting that wasn’t advertised – and drew 15 people.
Monsef is the MP for PeterboroughKawartha and also the Minister of Democratic Institutions.
It was reported by the CBC and other news sources that there was no advertising for her town hall meeting in Iqaluit, the mayor wasn’t invited and there was no Inuktitut translation.
Jocasta Boone, who worked on Monsef’s election campaign in Peterborough, is on the tour as a staff communications advisor. She wasn’t available for comment on Tuesday.
Neither was Monsef, but her staff in Ottawa responded to questions.
Jean-Bruno Villeneuve, issues manager and press secretary for Monsef, called it “an unfortunate oversight” that there was no Inuktitut translator at the meeting or brochures printed in Inuktitut.
“Iqaluit was the first stop in a month-long cross country tour and adjustments will be made based on feedback we received,” he wrote in an email.
For the next six weeks, Monsef will be asking Canadians whether they’d like to see a change in the electoral system.
When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised that the last election would be the final one using the first-past-the-post system, he didn’t say what system would replace it.
Monsef is in charge of asking Canadians what sort of electoral reform they’d like to see.
CBC reported that the 10 a.m. town hall meeting at a hotel in Iqaluit wasn’t advertised anywhere and that there was no Inuktitut interpreter there (although there was a French translator). The online newspaper Nunatsiaq
News reported that 15 people attended. It also quoted Iqaluit Mayor Madeleine Redfern as saying she hadn’t been invited.
Redfern told Nunatsiaq News she found out about the town hall meeting about 30 minutes before it started, from someone who’d mentioned they were going to attend.
The mayor was unavailable for an interview on Tuesday.
But she told Nunatsiaq News she wasn’t surprised so few people attended a public meeting at 10 a.m. on a work day.
Redfern said it would have been preferable to have held the meeting in the evening, so people could come after work.
She also told the CBC that meetings in Nunavut – particularly in Iqaluit – require Inuktitut translation.
“Otherwise, there is a significant portion of our population who will not be able to understand or participate,” she said.
Monsef told CBC that more mentions on social media might have helped attract people to the Iqaluit meeting.
“What we heard today is how important social media is for various communities here, and so it will be playing a more prominent role in our conversations and in our outreach ahead of time,” she said.
Neither Monsef nor Boone tweeted much in advance of the meeting in Iqaluit.
Boone ran for Peterborough council in 2014. Villeneuve said she is employed by Monsef ’s Ottawa office as a communications advisor. The job wasn’t publicly advertised.
“The employment of ministerial staff is exempt from the normal public services hiring processes and regulations,” Villeneuve wrote.
He also wrote that her salary cannot be disclosed under the Privacy Act.