High cost of living could drive people out of N.W.T., warn voters ahead of election

Ask people on the streets of Yellowknife about how much it costs to live in the Northwest Territories and many will give you a simple answer.

"It's too much," said Pauloosie Allooloo, who's on income support and renting a room in the city. 

When asked what the territorial government could do about it, Allooloo's answer is simple, too. 

"Build more affordable housing."

Allooloo said he often thinks about moving south because of how costly it is to live in the North.

And few are likely to blame him, when the average Yellowknife household pays 28 per cent more for food and 47 per cent more for shelter than the average Canadian household, according to 2021 data from the N.W.T. Bureau of Statistics.

Sixteen-year-old Daniel Hogaluk said several of his co-workers at a Yellowknife grocery store recently moved, or are planning to move, out of the territory, mainly because of the city's high prices.

"It is hard trying to get a home here in Yellowknife. A lot of housing is expensive. Rent is very expensive, from what I've heard," he said. "It is very hard and a lot of people are moving down south."

Hogaluk said he'll probably move south one day, too, largely for the same reasons.

The high cost of living in the N.W.T. is a perennial issue. Twenty-one territorial election candidates told CBC News that's one of the biggest challenges facing people in their regions right now. 

What's more, the price one pays to live in the North isn't going down. If anything, it's rising, and it could drive people out of the N.W.T. at a time when observers say that growing the population is instrumental to future economic growth. 

The cost of meeting basic needs

The cost of living refers to how much money a person needs to afford a certain standard of living, and includes expenses like food, housing, transportation and health care. 

To be sure, the cost of living is connected to wages, and in general, incomes are higher in the Northwest Territories than in Canada overall. 

According to the N.W.T. Bureau of Statistics, in 2021, the average annual family income in the territory was $152,592. In Yellowknife, it was much higher, at $178,338. 

The average family income in Canada as a whole was $124,793.

But for people on lower incomes, getting by is likely more of a struggle in the Northwest Territories than in the South.

Statistics Canada uses the Market Basket Measure (MBM) as its "official measure of poverty." The MBM determines the amount a family of two adults and two children needs to meet their basic needs in different parts of the country. If a family earns below the MBM threshold in their community, they're considered to be living below the poverty line.  

According to MBM data, in 2022, for a family in Yellowknife to achieve a basic standard of living, it cost $66,991. By comparison, the same size family in Edmonton needed $55,225 — close to $12,000 less than its counterpart in Yellowknife.

Unsurprisingly, the MBM thresholds were much higher in more northern and remote areas of the N.W.T.: $80,064 in the Beaufort Delta region in 2022, and $81,150 in the Sahtu. 

These thresholds have risen across Canada over the last five years.

'We're penalized because of where we live'

Jackie Jacobson, the former MLA for Nunakput, said that for many constituents in his riding, paying for housing, bills and food is a constant struggle.

By way of example, in 2022 the price of a four-litre jug of milk in Tuktoyaktuk (about $15) was more than twice that of a jug in Yellowknife (around $6), according to the N.W.T. Bureau of Statistics.  

"The cost of living in Nunakput is outrageous," Jacobson told the Legislative Assembly in March. 

"It's almost [like] we're penalized because of where we live."

For Jacobson, a significant contributor to the high-and-getting-higher cost of living in the far North is the carbon tax.

"In my riding, everything's trucked in and then flown into the communities," he told CBC last week.

"The store's not going to eat the cost. The trucking company's not going to eat the cost. It's the final end, the consumer, which is the people in the communities."

He said the territorial government's Cost of Living Offset, a tax-free benefit for residents meant to ease the burden of the carbon tax, doesn't go far enough. 

Jacobson wants the next territorial government to work on securing carbon tax exemptions, similar to what some other jurisdictions recently got on home heating oil, or get the tax scrapped altogether.   

But it's not just prices at the store and the pump that are rising, said Jacobson. Prices are rising "right across the board… in the whole territory," he said. "And employment opportunities are few and far between in the communities, and it's just making life tougher on everybody."

Of course, the territorial government can't control certain economic forces, like inflation, that drive up costs in the North. 

But the government has, in various ways over the last several years, added to the price residents pay to live in the territory, from increasing the cost of the medical travel co-payment in 2019, to asking some people to start paying a deductible on prescription drugs this spring, under the Extended Health Benefit Policy.

'It's just disheartening'

Even in Yellowknife, which boasts relatively low prices compared to other N.W.T. communities, the cost of living is becoming harder to bear for many. 

Reyhan Sarikaya, a federal government worker, and her husband, a seasonal worker running the Fieldhouse canteen, own a home and have raised three children in Yellowknife. Sarikaya said that in the 20 years since her eldest child was born, the cost of living has "skyrocketed."

"With one-and-a-half jobs as an income coming in, and benefits from one full-time job, it's not easy. It's incredibly hard," she said.

"The cost of fuel is incredibly expensive. Our grocery bills are getting even more expensive. My husband has to increase the prices for things in the canteen that he doesn't want to, but he's got no choice because he's paying more to get these things, and it's just disheartening," she said.

Now, Sarikaya's living expenses are poised to grow even more.

Ottawa is planning to reduce the housing subsidy federal employees get in Yellowknife, Norman Wells and Inuvik, N.W.T., as well as in Whitehorse and Iqaluit — cuts that could see homeowning workers lose between $6,000 and $8,000 a year.

Sarikaya believes housing subsidy cuts could result in a "brain drain" from the territory, and make it less enticing for new talent to relocate North. The community at large will be worse off as a result, she said.

"The worst thing is getting federal government services remotely, because they don't get it," said Sarikaya. "You need people who are in your community to communicate the struggles of living here." 

Sarikaya hopes the next batch of MLAs will recognize the value of their federal public service constituents, and work hard to keep them in the territory.

To that end, she offered some ideas: elected officials could introduce a cap on rent and a home-heating subsidy for homeowners. 

Sarikaya said this summer's wildfire evacuations drove home how connected people are to each other and to the territory.

"We really want to stay, but you've got to make it worthwhile to stay," she said. 

She hopes the elected candidates remember to always advocate for the people they represent, "because when you stay silent, nothing happens, and then you lose everything."