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 The Northwest Territories is a federal Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada. At a land area of approximately and a 2021 census population of 41,070, it is the second-largest and the most populous of Provinces and territorie ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. It is a unicameral elected body that creates and amends law in the Northwest Territories. Permanently located in

Yellowknife Yellowknife is the capital, largest community, and the 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 outlet of t ...

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 The commissioner of the Northwest Territories () is the Government of Canada's representative in the Northwest Territories. Similar in certain functions to a lieutenant governor, the commissioner swears in the members of the legislative assembl ...

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 North-West Territories and by its short name as the North-West Council, lasted from the creation of North-West Territories, Canada, in 1870 until it was dissolved in 1876 ...

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 ( 2021 population 4,400) is a 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". Although ...

a year later based on the planned location there of the

Canadian Pacific Railway The Canadian Pacific Railway () , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadian Pacific Kansas City, Canadian Pacific Ka ...

. 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 North-West Territories election The 1885 North-West Territories election was the first major election in the history of the territory. On 15 September 1885, 11 members were elected in separate elections or by acclamation. The elections saw members acclaimed and elected in vario ...

. 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 Responsible government is a conception of a system of government that embodies the principle of parliamentary accountability, the foundation of the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy. Governments (the equivalent of the executive br ...

for the first time in October 1897 as the Lieutenant Governor appointed Frederick Haultain 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 was the second lieutenant governor of Alberta. Early life Robert George Brett was born on Nove ...

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 (), formally His Majesty's Government (), is the body responsible for the federation, federal administration of Canada. The term ''Government of Canada'' refers specifically to the executive, which includes Minister of t ...

for provincial powers for the North-West Territories. In response on September 1, 1905, the provinces of

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

and

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...

were created by Prime Minister

Wilfrid Laurier Sir Henri Charles Wilfrid Laurier (November 20, 1841 – February 17, 1919) was a Canadian lawyer, statesman, and Liberal politician who served as the seventh prime minister of Canada from 1896 to 1911. The first French Canadians, French ...

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 North-West Territories from 1876 until the creation of the

Supreme Court of the North-West Territories The Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories is the name of two different superior courts for the Canadian territory of the Northwest Territories, which have existed at different times. The first Supreme Court of the North-West Territories was c ...

in 1887. Appointed members of the council served as stipendiary magistrates who would travel the territories and oversee legal cases when the legislature was not sitting. In 1887 the North-West 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 A commissioner (commonly abbreviated as Comm'r) is, in principle, a member of a commission or an individual who has been given a commission (official charge or authority to do something). In practice, the title of commissioner has evolved to incl ...

—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 Natural Resources Canada (NRCan; ; )Natural Resources Canada is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program; the legal title is Department of Natural Resources (). is the department of the Government of Canada responsible for natural r ...

. 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 District of Mackenzie was a regional administrative district of Canada's Northwest Territories. The district consisted of the portion of the Northwest Territories directly north of British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan on Canada's main ...

. 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 l ...

moved the territorial capital from Ottawa to

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, presided over the Assembly.

Consensus government

Commissioner John Parker gave up his powers of running the executive council and appointed George Braden 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 ...

, although Canada's other territorial legislature, the

Legislative Assembly of Yukon The Yukon Legislative Assembly () is the legislative assembly for Yukon, Canada. Unique among Canada's three territories, the Yukon Legislative Assembly is the only territorial legislature which is organized along political party lines. In contr ...

, 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 (; ; ) is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's radio and television service for the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon of Northern Canada as well as Eeyou Istchee and Nunavik in the Nord-du-Québec region of Quebec. Hist ...

, 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 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 located at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers in or near the area now known as The Forks in what is now central Winnipeg, Manitoba. Fort Garr ...

. After the council moved to Fort Livingstone it was housed in the Swan River Barracks used by the

North-West Mounted Police The North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) was a Canadian paramilitary police force, established in 1873, to maintain order in the new Canadian North-West Territories (NWT) following the 1870 transfer of Rupert's Land and North-Western Territory to ...

. 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 () 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. The membership of the

20th Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly The 20th Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly in Canada was established by the results of the 2023 Northwest Territories general election on November 14, 2023. Membership Source: Executive Council of the Northwest Territories No ...

, was selected in the 2023 Northwest Territories general election on November 14, 2023. Each member represents one

electoral district An electoral (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provi ...

. The territory has fixed election date legislation that ensures elections are held every four years on the first Monday in October. The legislature since 1905 is a non-partisan body and all members run and sit as independents. Jane Weyallon Armstrong's by-election win in Monfwi on July 27, 2021, during the 19th Legislative Assembly, saw the Northwest Territories become the first provincial or territorial government in Canada with a majority of its membership identifying as female. At the time, the territory was also led by the nation's only female premier,

Caroline Cochrane Caroline Cochrane (formerly Caroline Cochrane-Johnson; born December 5, 1960) is a former Canadian politician, who served as the 13th premier of the Northwest Territories, from 2019 to 2023. She is the second female premier of the Northwest Terr ...

Legislative Assembly of Northwest Territories commissioner chair

The current membership is as follows:

Cabinet Ministers

The seven ministers of the Government of the NWT are found in the

Executive Council of the Northwest Territories The Executive Council of the Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories is a federal Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada. At a land area of approximately and a 2021 census population of 41,070, it is the second-large ...

References

External links

Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories

Elections NWT siteFonds 322 - Northwest Territories. Legislative Assembly fonds. Northwest Territories Archives
{{DEFAULTSORT:Legislative Assembly Of The Northwest Territories

1870 establishments in the Northwest Territories