Eva Aariak - Political Career

Political Career

Aariak was the only woman elected to the Legislative Assembly in the 2008 election. She subsequently expressed her disappointment with that fact, suggesting that improved daycare services in Nunavut might be needed to help women participate more actively in the political process and that the territory should revisit the failed proposal to have a smaller number of electoral districts, each of which would choose one man and one woman as MLAs.

Two other women, Jeannie Ugyuk and Monica Ell, were subsequently elected to the legislature in by-elections.

At the Nunavut Leadership Forum on November 14, 2008, Aariak was chosen as the new premier over incumbent Paul Okalik and MLA Tagak Curley. She is the fifth woman, after Rita Johnston, Nellie Cournoyea, Catherine Callbeck and Pat Duncan, to hold a premiership in Canada, and the sixth female First Minister in the country including former Prime Minister Kim Campbell.