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NWT voters clean house in Nov. 23 election Voting sees 8 members of legislative assembly lose their seats, including Industry Minister Ramsay; McLeod retains seat GARY PARK For Petroleum News
Weighed down by a stagnant resource economy and uncertainty over aboriginal land rights, disgruntled voters in Canada’s Northwest Territories sent a message that the status quo is not good enough by defeating eight sitting members of their legislative assembly in the Nov. 23 election.
Two MLAs seeking their sixth terms were among those tossed out in the cold, while Industry Minister Dave Ramsay, a constantly positive voice and an unrelenting lobbyist for resource investment, was unseated by a wide margin.
Ramsay offered two explanations - “people didn’t show up to vote” while the NWT experienced a hangover from the October federal election “where people wanted change and a lot of new candidates (in the NWT) were promoting change.”
But Premier Bob McLeod, a former industry minister, was one of the incumbents to survive, easily defeating his two rivals.
However, it is not clear whether he will remain premier.
The candidates in the election all run as independents, with no party affiliation. The 19 who were elected will meet in December to choose a cabinet and premier.
More borrowing requested McLeod said the NWT faces a “lot of challenges” faced with revenues that are forecast to grow by less than 0.5 percent in total over the next four years, while expenditures are expected to grow by 8 percent over the same period.
The NWT government has asked the Canadian government for permission to double its legal borrowing limit to C$1.8 billion, without which its resource investment will remain stuck at C$100 million a year, the lowest of the three territorial governments - NWT, Yukon and Nunavut.
Although acknowledging that times are tough, McLeod, who has spent decades as a politician and a high-ranking government official, said “this is not the worst situation for our government. We still have a lot of positive things going on.”
The completion within about two years of an all-weather road connecting Inuvik with Tuktoyaktuk on the Beaufort Sea will lower the costs and improve access to oil, natural gas and mineral resources.
Resource resistance But resource development continues to face strong resistance, with an Ekos Research poll in mid-November showing that the environment is the top priority for 20 percent of respondents, with economic growth supported by 14 percent.
The NWT and Nunavut Chamber of Commerce expressed concern that 30 percent of the region is closed to exploration.
“We don’t know where all the attractive mineral deposits are in the NWT,” the group said. “We also don’t know the types of minerals society will be needing in the future.
”If we want to keep our mining industry strong, closing off even more lands to exploration doesn’t make sense,” the chamber said.
Oil and gas exploration in the Beaufort Sea and Central Mackenzie Valley has virtually come to a standstill because of costs and low commodity prices, but the Mackenzie Gas Project remains alive after 15 years of planning and regulatory hearings.
The project now hangs by a thread as consortium leader Imperial Oil asks Canada’s National Energy Board to grant a seven year extension from the end of 2015 to start construction on the 700-mile pipeline from the Mackenzie Delta to northern Alberta.
The NEB has notified a wide array or organizations, including the World Wildlife Fund and the Inuvialuit Regional Corp., as well as Imperial and other companies involved in the C$16.2 billion project, that they have until Feb. 16 to indicate whether they support the extension.
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