Reasons for N.W.T. non-confidence vote to be revealed Friday

The veil is about to be lifted off a move by Northwest Territories MLAs to fire one of the cabinet ministers they elected seven months ago.

MLAs will be debating a motion on Friday calling for the removal of Great Slave MLA Katrina Nokleby from cabinet.

The lack of any explanation for the motion of non-confidence has raised concerns that it may be more about political ambitions than anything Nokleby, a rookie MLA, has or has not done.

One N.W.T. resident has started an online petition to keep Nokleby in cabinet. Hundreds have put their names on it. The Northwest Territories Chamber of Mines sent an open letter to all MLAs urging them to keep Nokleby on, saying the legislative assembly "is all the better for having Minister Nokleby occupying her current portfolios."

Nokleby is Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment as well as the Minister of Infrastructure. She is also the minister responsible for the Workers' Safety and Compensation Commission.

Confidential committee discussions

The morning before regular MLAs gave notice of their intention to remove Nokleby they met as the Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight. The committee, made up of all regular MLAs, has held in-camera meetings every day this week.

According to an agenda for that meeting, committee chair Steve Norn was scheduled to lead discussion of a motion. The agenda provides no detail about the motion.

MLAs are required to keep all in-camera committee discussions confidential. That secrecy is a key feature of consensus government.

As a summary of the conventions and principles of consensus government notes: "For consensus government to work, all Members must agree to respect the confidentiality of information before it is properly made public."

The summary notes that confidential matters include "concerns with the performance of a specific minister."

According to publicly available records, the last time Nokleby met with the committee of MLAs was during a closed-door briefing on April 20. Other matters discussed by the committee in-camera that month include dental services, the diamond mines' compliance with orders of the chief public health officer, and a pandemic recovery strategy, according to agendas posted online.

But one former MLA says confidentiality rules do not preclude MLAs from giving the public some sense of why they are asking for Nokleby to be removed from cabinet.

"I don't buy the secrecy," said Kieron Testart, who chaired the committee of MLAs in the last assembly. "I think there's ways to talk about why you're making decisions without breaching that confidentiality and still give the public a fair bit of information about why you're taking these steps."

More than political intrigue

Testart said that while non-confidence motions create drama that capture public attention, they are more than political drama.

"I don't think it's just drama and political intrigue if there's a serious issue with performance. At the end of the day, people don't get to choose cabinet ministers, they don't get to choose premiers in our system of government," said Testart. "It's up to members to make those decisions and, ultimately, to ensure the government is being run properly."

One cabinet minister in the last government who was the target of a non-confidence motion said he harboured no hard feelings against the MLAs who supported the motion, but said it did take up a lot of time.

"Maybe that took our eye off the ball a bit," said former Justice Minister Louis Sebert. "You've got limited time and sometimes these issues can divert your attention from issues that you're supposed to be dealing with."