What can we say about this second pandemic year in the Northwest Territories? It was kind of a drag.
We wore masks, shrunk our social circles and kept kids home from school — again.
We tried to be good all year long, and still got a lump of coal called Omicron.
But COVID-19 wasn’t the only story driving news in 2021.
N.W.T. lawmakers also fed our feeds with scandals, resignations and state of emergency declarations.
What follows is a by-no-means-exhaustive rundown of political stories that made N.W.T. headlines in 2021.
An apology and some allegations
The year in politics got rolling in February, when the Legislative Assembly reconvened, with a high-profile apology.
Premier Caroline Cochrane expressed regret over a handful of senior government officials who travelled outside the territory during the 2020 Christmas holidays after residents were urged to stay put to avoid importing COVID-19.
Cochrane apologized “to the public who have been hurt by this,” adding she hoped all members of the Legislative Assembly would “also be role models and not leave the territory until COVID-19 is done.”
Also in February, one of the territory’s most powerful bureaucrats, Legislative Assembly clerk Tim Mercer, was thrust into the public eye when allegations emerged that he bullied employees and created a toxic work environment.
Mercer said the accusations came from a small number of disgruntled employees, and that an investigation in 2018 dismissed claims against him.
In August, an independent review determined complaints that Mercer bullied and harassed colleagues were unfounded. One complaint, that Mercer breached confidentiality rules, was found to have merit.
The clerk of the N.W.T. legislature, Tim Mercer, pictured here in 2014. An independent review determined that complaints that Mercer bullied and harassed colleagues were unfounded. (CBC)
COVID anniversary, more pandemic spending
March marked one year of the global COVID-19 crisis, and the start of N.W.T.’s campaign to inoculate the general population.
Ahead of the budget’s approval, senior finance officials warned the “current fiscal plan is unsustainable,” with tax revenues expected to fall by almost $40 million, due to COVID-19.
In her speech on the proposed budget, Finance Minister Caroline Wawzonek defended her fiscal plan, which she said avoided cuts and new taxes.
Wawzonek said the territorial government is a major player in N.W.T.’s economy and “Budget 2021 has no reductions because right now the economy needs support.”
A public inquiry, a threatening Facebook message
In April, Act One opened in what would become the N.W.T.’s stand-out political drama of 2021.
Late on a Thursday night, then-Tu Nedhé-Wiilideh MLA Steve Norn said in a statement he had tested positive for COVID-19.
The revelation set off a series of events in which Norn played the hapless lead.
First, he sent mixedmessages to reporters about whether he’d broken isolation rules. Then, an integrity commissioner investigation reported that Norn breached public health orders when he visited the Legislative Assembly and the Yellowknife Racquet Club before the end of his mandatory, post-travel isolation period. The commissioner kicked the matter up to a sole adjudicator.
In a public inquiry held over nine days (and costing more than $800,000), that adjudicator found that Norn violated several sections of the Legislative Assembly’s code of conduct and recommended he be removed from his seat.
Former Tu Nedhé-Wiilideh MLA Steve Norn. After he was found to have violated the Legislative Assembly’s code of conduct, Norn apologized for pain he had caused, and resigned. (Travis Burke/CBC)
The inquiry also brought to light a threatening Facebook message Norn sent to his caucus colleagues in which he swore at them “for making my loved ones cry,” and wrote “I’m coming for you.”
Norn said his message was “in no way meant to be a physical threat,” and apologized to his coworkers.
In November, MLAs stated they would accept the adjudicator’s recommendations, but as they prepared to expel Norn, he apologized for pain he had caused, and resigned. (Speaker Frederick Blake Jr. later clarified that Norn’s resignation was invalid.)
Floods and a cabinet shuffle
The spring of 2021 brought devastating floods to the Dehcho and Beaufort Delta regions, with an estimated 700 people displaced in Fort Simpson. Some couldn’t return home for weeks or months.
Community members and MLAs expressed frustration over the government’s response, eroding public confidence in the minister in charge of disaster relief, Paulie Chinna.
It was the second time Chinna was taken off MACA. The first was in April of 2020, after COVID-19 snowballed into an international public health disaster. She was re-installed the following July.
Roughly 700 residents of Fort Simpson, N.W.T., evacuated the community due to severe flooding. (Mario De Ciccio/CBC)
Legislature becomes majority women
June also saw a noteworthy exit from the Legislative Assembly.
Then-Monfwi MLA Jackson Lafferty announced his resignation after 16 years representing the Tłıchǫ region, and his intentions to run for Tłıchǫ Grand Chief.
A by-election installed Jane Weyallon Armstrong in the Monfwi seat.
Not only was Weyallon Armstrong the first woman elected to represent the riding, but she tipped the gender balance of the Legislative Assembly, making it majority women — a first among Canadian legislatures.
Jane Weyallon Armstrong was the first woman elected to represent the Monfwi riding and her victory tipped the gender balance in the N.W.T. Legislative Assembly. (Chantal Dubuc/CBC)
Marching for lost children
June was also a month of mourning.
Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation in B.C. announced in late May it had located unmarked graves of an estimated 215 children near the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. On June 4, hundreds marched in Yellowknife to honour children who lost their lives at residential schools.
“It’s heartbreaking to hear, but it’s not shocking,” Inuvik Twin Lakes MLA Lesa Semmler said about the Kamloops grave sites. “As an Indigenous person, many of us have heard stories of what our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents have told us and what they’ve had to endure.”
Semmler also remarked upon Indigenous people’s determination to combat racism “so that this is never forgotten and never repeated.”
In the fall, Cochrane said the government could help Indigenous communities “in developing strategies for recording unmarked burial sites at residential schools” and “leveraging federal funding and resources.”
Hundreds took to the streets of Yellowknife on June 4, 2021, to honour children who died at residential schools. (Avery Zingel/CBC)
Day shelter debated, again
In 2021, Yellowknife was again embroiled in a dispute over where to put an additional day shelter.
The previous year, the city’s day shelter cut capacity as a COVID-19 precaution. Without that space for people to go during winter, and with pushback from businesses that didn’t want a shelter in their backyard, then-MACA Minister Paulie Chinna took what she called an “extraordinary step” and declared a state of emergency in Yellowknife.
The move allowed the government to seize the downtown Mine Rescue Building for a temporary day shelter.
But the building wasn’t meant to be a lasting solution, and when temperatures warmed, the state of emergency lifted, and the temporary day shelter closed.
At the time, Health Minister Julie Green said she hoped to find an alternative space before Oct. 1, 2021. But when October arrived, a new spot had yet to be secured.
Ultimately, the government once again resorted to declaring a state of emergency so it could build a temporary day shelter where the city’s old visitors’ centre used to be.
Yellowknife’s temporary day shelter going up at the site of the former visitors’ centre. This day shelter is meant to operate until 2024, when a permanent space is set to open. (April Hudson/CBC)
Another apology and a high note
The year in politics closed out like it began: with an apology.
Beyond the disruption this continues to cause for parents, the closure is expected to drain the N.W.T. government’s coffers of more than $1 million.
It was admittedly difficult to keep one’s chin up this year. Good news would land — the vaccines, the loosening of restrictions — and then there’d be an outbreak, our loved ones would get sick, and we’d have to cancel plans.
As the territory braces for a tsunami of new COVID-19 cases, it will be hard to celebrate the dawn of 2022 with the ebullience of New Year’s Eves past.
But we’re determined to end the year on a high note.
So please, read this story and watch its extremely adorable videos of toddlers dancing the jig in Tuktoyaktuk.
And here’s to more small moments of pure joy in 2022.
Giselle Kimiksana, left, Elias Gordon-Ruben, centre, and Eva Raddi-Felix were all entered in the Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk’s online jigging competition this year. (Caroline Jane/Facebook, Tianna Gordon-Ruben/Facebook, Crystal Raddi/Facebook)
With files from Richard Gleeson, Natalie Pressman, Hannah Paulson, Liny Lamberink, Loren McGinnis, Avery Zingel and John Last.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MONTREAL – NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says he will not be taking advice from Pierre Poilievre after the Conservative leader challenged him to bring down government.
“I say directly to Pierre Poilievre: I’m not going to listen to you,” said Singh on Wednesday, accusing Poilievre of wanting to take away dental-care coverage from Canadians, among other things.
“I’m not going to listen to your advice. You want to destroy people’s lives, I want to build up a brighter future.”
Earlier in the day, Poilievre challenged Singh to commit to voting non-confidence in the government, saying his party will force a vote in the House of Commons “at the earliest possibly opportunity.”
“I’m asking Jagmeet Singh and the NDP to commit unequivocally before Monday’s byelections: will they vote non-confidence to bring down the costly coalition and trigger a carbon tax election, or will Jagmeet Singh sell out Canadians again?” Poilievre said.
“It’s put up or shut up time for the NDP.”
While Singh rejected the idea he would ever listen to Poilievre, he did not say how the NDP would vote on a non-confidence motion.
“I’ve said on any vote, we’re going to look at the vote and we’ll make our decision. I’m not going to say our decision ahead of time,” he said.
Singh’s top adviser said on Tuesday the NDP leader is not particularly eager to trigger an election, even as the Conservatives challenge him to do just that.
Anne McGrath, Singh’s principal secretary, says there will be more volatility in Parliament and the odds of an early election have risen.
“I don’t think he is anxious to launch one, or chomping at the bit to have one, but it can happen,” she said in an interview.
New Democrat MPs are in a second day of meetings in Montreal as they nail down a plan for how to navigate the minority Parliament this fall.
The caucus retreat comes one week after Singh announced the party has left the supply-and-confidence agreement with the governing Liberals.
It’s also taking place in the very city where New Democrats are hoping to pick up a seat on Monday, when voters go to the polls in Montreal’s LaSalle—Émard—Verdun. A second byelection is being held that day in the Winnipeg riding of Elmwood—Transcona, where the NDP is hoping to hold onto a seat the Conservatives are also vying for.
While New Democrats are seeking to distance themselves from the Liberals, they don’t appear ready to trigger a general election.
Singh signalled on Tuesday that he will have more to say Wednesday about the party’s strategy for the upcoming sitting.
He is hoping to convince Canadians that his party can defeat the federal Conservatives, who have been riding high in the polls over the last year.
Singh has attacked Poilievre as someone who would bring back Harper-style cuts to programs that Canadians rely on, including the national dental-care program that was part of the supply-and-confidence agreement.
The Canadian Press has asked Poilievre’s office whether the Conservative leader intends to keep the program in place, if he forms government after the next election.
With the return of Parliament just days away, the NDP is also keeping in mind how other parties will look to capitalize on the new makeup of the House of Commons.
The Bloc Québécois has already indicated that it’s written up a list of demands for the Liberals in exchange for support on votes.
The next federal election must take place by October 2025 at the latest.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante is defending her decision to turn off comments on her social media accounts — with an announcement on social media.
She posted screenshots to X this morning of vulgar names she’s been called on the platform, and says comments on her posts for months have been dominated by insults, to the point that she decided to block them.
Montreal’s Opposition leader and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association have criticized Plante for limiting freedom of expression by restricting comments on her X and Instagram accounts.
They say elected officials who use social media should be willing to hear from constituents on those platforms.
However, Plante says some people may believe there is a fundamental right to call someone offensive names and to normalize violence online, but she disagrees.
Her statement on X is closed to comments.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
