Quttiktuq MLA Levi Barnabas was named to Nunavut's cabinet by his fellow members on Thursday.

Barnabas, who represents Nunavut's northernmost communities, was acclaimed at a territorial leadership forum.

He accepted the nomination by Hudson Bay MLA Peter Kattuk, and was acclaimed after Uqqummiut MLA James Arreak declined his nomination.

"I'm happy," Barnabas said after the forum ended. "I felt that in High Arctic communities, especially in the smaller communities, that there should be a representative."

Barnabas will be officially sworn in as a cabinet minister Thursday evening. Premier Paul Okalik will assign him a porfolio at a later date.

MLA skips forum in protest

Under Nunavut's consensus-based model of government, MLAs choose cabinet ministers among their own members.

One member, Iqaluit Centre MLA Hunter Tootoo, skipped Thursday's forum in protest because he said he's lost confidence in the territorial government.

He said he believes Barnabas will have little time in cabinet before the next territorial election, expected to take place this fall.

"To me, it seemed kind of pointless to have someone put into the executive council that won't have the time to be able to do anything," Tootoo said.

But Rankin Inlet North MLA Tagak Curley disagreed.

"The load with some of the ministers is still quite huge," he said. "We have limited time, but still I think the workload should be spread out."

Barnabas fills a cabinet seat vacated in December by former finance minister David Simailak after it was revealed that he did not fully disclose his business interests in a private company.

The new cabinet member, a 44-year-old Arctic Bay resident, was first elected to the legislative assembly in 1995, when Nunavut was still part of the Northwest Territories.

He became Nunavut's first Speaker of the house when the territory was born in 1999. However, he was forced to resign in 2000 after he pleaded guilty to sexual assault. He was re-elected in 2004.

Suggests nuclear reactors in communities

On Wednesday, Barnabas said that the territorial government should consider putting small nuclear reactors in some larger communities to help lower energy costs.

He told the legislative assembly that Nuanvut's population is growing, the cost of fuel is rising and the territorial government cannot keep up with people's energy needs.

As well, he said, some communities have faced problems with their diesel generators, which are costly to run.

Instead, he wondered about pursuing a low-energy nuclear reactor "that is much cheaper than operating power-plant generators."

Energy Minister Ed Picco said nuclear energy is on the government's list of alternatives to diesel-generated electricity, which he acknowledged it is not sustainable in the long run.

However, Picco raised safety issues with using nuclear energy in remote Arctic communities, where blizzards and inclement weather are common.

"The problem with nuclear energy is that in the case of some kind of catastrophic failure, how would you be able to get the resources into a community to be able to deal with that?" Picco said, adding that radioactive nuclear waste also raises major questions.

Picco said the Nunavut government will keep nuclear energy in mind as it continues looking to other clean technologies, such as wind power and hydroelectricity, to reduce its dependency on fuel.