N.W.T. politicians urged to delay territorial election amid evacuations
MLAs to meet next week to vote on recomendation from N.W.T.'s chief electoral officer
With more than half of N.W.T.'s residents displaced from their home communities due to wildfires, the territory MLAs have been asked to consider delaying the upcoming territorial election.
A news release Monday afternoon from the N.W.T. Legislative Assembly said the territory's chief electoral officer wants the election, currently scheduled for Oct. 3, to be delayed until November.
Wildfires have prompted a territory-wide state of emergency and put many communities in crisis in recent days. The Yellowknife area, Ndilǫ, Dettah, Fort Smith, Hay River, Kátł'odeeche First Nation, Enterprise and Kakisa are all still under evacuation orders.
MLAs are expected to discuss the request on Aug. 28. The meeting is currently set for 1:30 p.m. MT, though the location is yet to be determined. If members can't meet in Yellowknife, which is under an evacuation order, they'll meet in Inuvik instead.
Katrina Nokleby, MLA for Great Slave, said Monday she feels there is no choice except to delay the election because of how the evacuations have unfolded.
She told CBC News that she felt it may not have had to come to this, if cabinet members had planned in advance for possible evacuations of this scale.
"What am I going to say now? They're clearly so disorganized that there's just no way," she said of the territory's top leaders.
Monfwi MLA Jane Weyallon Armstrong said she would be OK with delaying the election, though she doesn't have strong feelings about it. The priority for her right now is making sure people are safe, she said.
"Right now, we can't think about the election because we're worried about our people," she said.
If MLAs vote against formally delaying the election, it would go ahead as scheduled, with the campaign kicking off on Sept. 4.
In that event, chief electoral officer Stephen Dunbar would delay the election in all evacuation zones for up to three months, which could mean MLAs would be elected at different times.
The meeting will have a secondary purpose as well: MLAs will also vote on whether to approve more money to cover wildfire-related costs.