Born and raised in Tuktoyaktuk, Erwin Elias is now the incoming leader of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation after winning a seven-way election on Tuesday.
Candidates had time to make final pitches to the 42 voting community corporation directors on election day, then took multiple rounds of questions before the vote began.
Elias, who was Tuktoyaktuk’s mayor from 2019 to 2025, ran on a platform that had climate change as a central pillar.
Tuktoyaktuk is an Arctic coastal community facing an erosion crisis. Already, some of the community’s buildings have had to be moved away from the threat of a disappearing shoreline, while less Arctic ice cover is increasing the likelihood of even fiercer storm surge, worsening the problem.
In seeking directors’ votes on Tuesday, Elias pointed to his role in securing nearly $54 million in federal support to pay for armoured rock and other tactics to slow Tuktoyaktuk’s coastline erosion.
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He told directors the changing climate was not simply a Tuktoyaktuk problem, pointing to other events like recent storm damage in Ulukhaktok.
“We’re seeing the effects in Ulukhaktok, in Sachs Harbour and Paulatuk. Even in the [Mackenzie] Delta, we’re facing the effects of climate change,” he said.
Elias set out a vision for the next four years in which the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation invests in its younger generation, rapidly advances housing programs, improves communication and collaboration between communities, and looks at ways to improve mental health services.
“One of the things I’ve heard since I was a kid is that we can’t be spending our own money with the corporation – we need to save it for the future generations,” he said.
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“They’ve missed a few generations here. I think it’s super important we understand that if we don’t take care of this generation now, we have no future.”
Pledging an open-door policy, he said the priorities in his opening year would include getting to know the IRC’s corporate structure and its programs and contribution agreements, then focusing on housing and infrastructure while looking to bring down the cost of living.
He also spoke about holding the NWT government “accountable,” saying many issues raised by Inuvialuit residents during the IRC chair election campaign – such as medical travel concerns and access to dental care – could be traced in some way to the GNWT.
As an example of an area where he would advocate for change, he pointed to the rules that govern the territory’s social assistance programs.
“The majority of the work we see in our communities is seasonal work or short term, which has a huge impact on someone wanting to actually get up and go to work, right from our young youth all the way up to our Elders,” he said.
“By that I mean if you’re offered a job to go work for two weeks, you’re penalized for three months through the GNWT system.”
Lastly, answering a question from Sachs Harbour’s directors, Elias said he would “support and entertain” the idea of fighting the federal government’s Arctic oil and gas moratorium, in place since 2016.
Borrowing some language from the question itself, he said he “would be ready to go to war” with Ottawa over the moratorium if the IRC’s board and game council wanted that to happen.
Allowing that other candidates had made important points regarding the environmental risks of oil and gas, Elias added: “We need an economy as well to survive.”
