NWT Makes History ... Again: Women MLAs form majority.

AuthorStos, Will
PositionSketches of Parliaments and Parliamentarians

On October 1, 2019, a general election in the Northwest Territories ushered in a profound change to the make-up of its Legislative Assembly. Prior to the election, just two of the territory's 18 MLAs were women. After a determined campaign to encourage more women to become involved in territorial politics, nine women were elected along with 10 men in the newly reconfigured 19-member assembly. NWT had gone from having the lowest proportion of women parliamentarians in an assembly to the highest and virtually achieving gender parity. A 2021 by-election has brought women MLAs to a majority position in the assembly. In this article, the author recounts the events leading up to this historic moment.

The Northwest Territories has been called a trailblazer in terms of diversity and representation. Since responsible government returned in 1983, a majority of its MLAs and premiers have been Indigenous. Nellie Cournoyea became the Canada's first Indigenous woman premier and only the second woman premier in the country in 1991.

However, despite Cournoyea's early success, rarely have more than 10 per cent of territory's MLAs been women; and, on the eve of its most recent general election in 2019, the jurisdiction had the lowest proportion of women parliamentarians in the country. The territory's MLAs were well aware of how it was lagging in terms of parliamentary gender equity.

The 18th Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories made "supporting initiatives designed to increase the number of women running for elected office" one of its priorities. The members of the Assembly unanimously adopted a motion on March 8, 2018 that set a goal of increasing the representation of women in the chamber to 20 per cent by 2023 and by 30 per cent by 2027.

A special committee of MLAs chaired by Julie Green was formed in October 2018 to research and recommend ways to achieve this goal. Some ideas proposed in the committee's interim report and endorsed by the Assembly included: making child care an allowable election...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT