The Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly, or Legislative Council of the Northwest Territories (with Northwest hyphenated as North-West until 1906),
is the legislature and the seat of government of
Northwest Territories in
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
. It is a unicameral elected body that creates and amends law in the Northwest Territories. Permanently located in
Yellowknife
Yellowknife (; Dogrib: ) is the capital, largest community, and only city in the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is on the northern shore of Great Slave Lake, about south of the Arctic Circle, on the west side of Yellowknife Bay near the ...
since 1993, the assembly was founded in 1870 and became active in 1872 with the first appointments from the Government of Canada.
Until 2014, the assembly was officially defined under federal law as "Legislative Council". However, under Northwest Territories territorial law, it was defined as "Legislative Assembly". The federal name was changed when the Northwest Territories Act was rewritten in 2014. Under different periods of its history it has alternated names.
Members of the Legislative Assembly are
sworn in by the
Commissioner of the Northwest Territories.
Early history
The Legislative Assembly was first known as the
Temporary North-West Council
The Temporary North-West Council, more formally known as the Council of the Northwest Territories and by its short name as the North-West Council, lasted from the creation of Northwest Territories, Canada, in 1870 until it was dissolved in 1876. Th ...
and was created in 1870. The first appointments to the council were made on December 28, 1872. The Temporary Council was dissolved in 1876 and a new permanent council was appointed and moved to the new capital of
Fort Livingstone in 1876. The council moved to
Battleford
Battleford ( 2011 population 4,065) is a small town located across the North Saskatchewan River from the City of North Battleford, in Saskatchewan, Canada.
Battleford and North Battleford are collectively referred to as "The Battlefords" b ...
a year later based on the planned location there of the
Canadian Pacific Railway.
The very first election to the Assembly would take place on March 23, 1881, as
Lawrence Clarke was elected to represent the electoral district of
Lorne. In 1883 the Assembly moved south to
Regina based on amendments to the route of the railway. The first territory-wide election took place on September 15, 1885, known as the
1885 Northwest Territories election
Events
January–March
* January 3– 4 – Sino-French War – Battle of Núi Bop: French troops under General Oscar de Négrier defeat a numerically superior Qing Chinese force, in northern Vietnam.
* January 4 – ...
.
Three years later the
first general election took place. All the voting members of the Assembly were elected for the first time, and an elected speaker took office. The Lieutenant Governor still had executive authority however and appointed and ran the cabinet. After the
second general election in 1891 the first fully elected Assembly without any appointed members. The Assembly achieved
Responsible Government for the first time in October 1897 as the Lieutenant Governor appointed
Frederick Haultain
Sir Frederick William Alpin Gordon Haultain (November 25, 1857 – January 30, 1942) was a lawyer and a long-serving Canadian politician and judge. His career in provincial and territorial legislatures stretched into four decades. He served ...
as the first Premier to form a government.
Robert Brett
Robert George Brett (November 16, 1851 – September 16, 1929) was a politician and physician in the North-West Territories and Alberta, Canada and served as the second Lieutenant Governor of Alberta.
Early life
Robert George Brett was born on ...
became the first Leader of the official opposition and party lines were roughly drawn based on Conservatives and Liberals.
The Haultain government lobbied for
Government of Canada
The government of Canada (french: gouvernement du Canada) is the body responsible for the federal administration of Canada. A constitutional monarchy, the Crown is the corporation sole, assuming distinct roles: the executive, as the ''Crown ...
for provincial powers for the Northwest Territories. In response on September 1, 1905, the provinces of
Alberta
Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...
and
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a province in western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dak ...
were created by Prime Minister
Wilfrid Laurier
Sir Henri Charles Wilfrid Laurier, ( ; ; November 20, 1841 – February 17, 1919) was a Canadian lawyer, statesman, and politician who served as the seventh prime minister of Canada from 1896 to 1911. The first French Canadian prime minis ...
out of the southern populated portion of the territories.
Court of law
The Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly served as the first court of law in the
Northwest Territories from 1876 until the creation of the
Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories in 1887. Appointed members of the council served as stipendiary magistrates would travel the territories and oversee legal cases when the Legislature was not sitting. In 1887 the Northwest Territories moved to a new system that assigned judges to judicial districts and separated the legal and judicial branches.
Ottawa
After the creation of Alberta and Saskatchewan, the remainder of the Northwest Territories was too sparsely populated by enfranchised voters to justify holding elections. The territory reverted to its confederation entry status. A new council was set up in Ottawa consisting of a
Commissioner—the effective replacement of the Lieutenant Governor—and four appointed members.
Frederick White was appointed as the first Commissioner and did not recall the council to sit during his time in office. During this time, the Territories were run by the federal
Department of Mines and Resources. The first session of the
Council of the Northwest Territories took place in 1921. The council members were bureaucrats appointed from the Interior Ministry and were not resident citizens of the territory.
In 1939, the
Yellowknife Administration District was created to provide services within 25 miles of Yellowknife. However, it was not until 1947 that
John G. McNiven was appointed to represent the district. McNiven was the first member appointed to the council from north of the 60th parallel.
In 1951 the council held its first general election in 49 years. The
fifth general election elected three members from the
District of Mackenzie. The old council was completely dissolved and five members were appointed along with the three elected representatives.
The council gradually gained more powers back from the federal government as the population in the territory grew. In 1967 the
Carrothers Commission
The Carrothers Commission, formally The Advisory Commission on the Development of Government in the Northwest Territories, was a commission set up by the government of Canada to study the future of government of the Northwest Territories. It was ...
moved the territorial capital from Ottawa to
Yellowknife
Yellowknife (; Dogrib: ) is the capital, largest community, and only city in the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is on the northern shore of Great Slave Lake, about south of the Arctic Circle, on the west side of Yellowknife Bay near the ...
and for the first time elected members represented all parts of the territories. In 1975 the Legislative Assembly became fully elected, and the first elected speaker since 1905,
David Searle
David Harry Searle (1936 – March 1, 2021) was a Canadian politician and lawyer from the Northwest Territories.
Legal career
Born in Edmonton, Alberta, Searle moved to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories with his family in 1946. He was educated a ...
, presided over the Assembly.
Consensus government
Commissioner
John Parker gave up his powers of running the executive council and appointed
George Braden
George Braden (November 4, 1949 – May 25, 2015) was a Canadian politician from the Northwest Territories, Canada. Elected as "Government Leader", Braden would retroactively become the second premier of the Northwest Territories, after a motion ...
as leader of the government and the first premier since 1905. The model of responsible government that was used this time around was known as consensus government. The executive council or cabinet forms government while all the regular members form an unofficial opposition.
The modern consensus government model is inherently non-partisan and serves effectively as a constant minority government. The legislature uses this model up to the current day; the same model of government is also used in the
Legislative Assembly of Nunavut
The Legislative Assembly of Nunavut is the legislative assembly for the Canadian territory of Nunavut. The seat of the Assembly is the Legislative Building of Nunavut in Iqaluit.
Prior to the creation of Nunavut as a Canadian territory on Apr ...
, although Canada's other territorial legislature, the
Legislative Assembly of Yukon
The Yukon Legislative Assembly (french: Assemblée législative du Yukon) is the legislative assembly for Yukon, Canada. Unique among Canada's three territories, the Yukon Legislative Assembly is the only territorial legislature which is organiz ...
, uses a traditional partisan politics model.
The consensus government model has received criticism on various grounds, including that it hampers long-term political and economic development in the territory because the lack of political parties mean that there is no mechanism to carry over a political agenda from one assembly to the next;
["Consensus government must be improved"]
''Northern Journal'', May 11, 2015. that it complicates the ability of less wealthy citizens to serve in the assembly because the lack of political parties means that election candidates must raise all of their campaign funds on their own;
["Zero support from MLAs for motion to introduce party politics in N.W.T."]
CBC North
CBC North ( iu, ᓰᐲᓰ ᐅᑭᐅᖅᑕᖅᑐᒥ, lit=CBC Northwest, translit=, SiiPiiSii Ukiuqtaqtumi; cr, ᓰᐲᓰ ᒌᐌᑎᓅᑖᐦᒡ, label=cr, SiiPiiSii Chiiwetinuutaahch; french: Radio-Canada Nord) is the Canadian Broadcasting Corpora ...
, October 30, 2018. that it prevents the voters from being able to demand or vote for systemic change, since there is no mechanism to replace an ineffective or underperforming government with another alternative;
[ and that it hampers efforts to improve diversity in representation, such as the election of more women and ethnic minorities to the legislature.]["A Few Good Women: The Gender Problem in NWT Politics"]
''Edge YK'', December 4, 2015.
In 2018, MLA Kieron Testart
Kieron Testart is a former Canadian politician who was elected to the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories in the 2015 election. He represented the electoral district of Kam Lake until the 2019 election, when he was defeated by Ca ...
introduced an amendment to the territorial Elections Act to permit the introduction of party politics in the legislative assembly, but his motion received no support from other MLAs and was dropped.[ In 2019, he planned to organize a group of ideologically aligned MLA candidates in the ]2019 Northwest Territories general election
The 2019 Northwest Territories general election was held on October 1, 2019. Nineteen members were elected to the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories.
Election
On September 6, 2019, Premier Bob McLeod announced that he would not se ...
into a "Liberal Democratic" slate, but backed off of the plan after it was leaked to the press.
Assembly buildings
The building that has housed the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly has changed many times since it was founded. The first building was the original Manitoba Legislature in Fort Garry
Fort Garry, also known as Upper Fort Garry, was a Hudson's Bay Company trading post at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers in what is now downtown Winnipeg. It was established in 1822 on or near the site of the North West Company' ...
. After the council moved to Fort Livingstone it was housed in the Swan River Barracks used by the North-West Mounted Police.
The first building built for the needs of the Assembly was NWT Government House in Battleford. That building also served as a residence for the Lieutenant Governor. In 1883 the Assembly moved to Regina. The Territorial Administration building was built to accommodate the growing Assembly and used until 1905.
After the creation of Alberta and Saskatchewan, the capital was moved to Ottawa and the council sessions took place in an office building on Sparks Street
Sparks Street (''French:'' Rue Sparks) is a pedestrian mall in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It was a main street in Ottawa that was converted into an outdoor pedestrian street in 1967, making it the earliest such street or mall in Canada. . When the council sessions returned to the territories, they were held in any infrastructure suitable as they traveled from community to community.
After the capital was moved to Yellowknife in 1967 a temporary site for the Legislative Assembly was used until the new Legislature building was finished in 1993. The design of the current Legislature building was created by Pin/Taylor Architects company from Yellowknife.
Current membership
The membership of the 19th Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly
The 19th Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly in Canada was established by the results of the 2019 Northwest Territories general election
The 2019 Northwest Territories general election was held on October 1, 2019. Nineteen members were elec ...
, was selected in the 2019 Northwest Territories general election
The 2019 Northwest Territories general election was held on October 1, 2019. Nineteen members were elected to the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories.
Election
On September 6, 2019, Premier Bob McLeod announced that he would not se ...
on October 1, 2019. A 2021 by-election was held for the electoral district of Monfwi.
Each member represents one electoral district.
The territories has fixed election date legislation that ensures elections are held every four years on the first Monday in October.Fixed election date in the N.W.T.: What does it mean, and why?
The legislature since 1905 is a non-partisan body and all members run and sit as independents.
Cabinet Ministers
The seven ministers of the Government of the NWT are found in the Executive Council of the Northwest Territories.
See also
*List of Northwest Territories Legislative Assemblies
This is a list of the Northwest Territories Legislative Assemblies dates and legislative sessions from 1870–present. The current capital is Yellowknife since 1967. There have been twenty-seven legislatures since becoming a territory in 1870.
...
*List of Northwest Territories general elections
This is a list of territorial elections in Northwest Territories, Canada since 1870. The Northwest Territories operates on a consensus government using the First Past the Post electoral system. The territory does not presently recognize political ...
*
References
Further reading
*
*
*
External links
Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories
Elections NWT site
Fonds 322 - Northwest Territories. Legislative Assembly fonds. Northwest Territories Archives
{{DEFAULTSORT:Legislative Assembly Of The Northwest Territories
Northwest Territories
1870 establishments in Canada