The Northwest Territories operates on a unique consensus government system, unlike the party politics seen in most of Canada. Here’s how it works:
Instead of parties, all Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) are elected as independents. After elections, MLAs gather as a Caucus to set priorities for the Assembly, functioning as equals throughout their term.
MLAs not in Cabinet are called Regular Members, acting as the “unofficial opposition” by holding the government accountable through questioning and committee work.
Unlike party systems, Regular Members have significant input on legislation and policies, with all major initiatives passing through their committees before reaching the House.
Regular Members have advance notice of government announcements but can’t share this information with their constituents.
With only six Cabinet Ministers among the 19 MLAs, Regular Members hold a significant balance of power, ensuring that the majority’s direction is respected. Despite the name, consensus government doesn’t require unanimous agreement; decisions are made by a simple majority vote.
Election of the Speaker, Premier, and Ministers After elections, Members gather for a Territorial Leadership Committee (TLC) meeting. Here’s how it unfolds:
Election of the Speaker: Members vote by secret ballot for the Speaker, who oversees the Assembly and enforces rules.
That sounds rad.
Except how does it prevent
shapeshadow parties or cabals forming behind the scenes?deleted by creator
What’s important here is that NWT has a population just under 46 000 people, which means that having 19 MLAs is fine (it translates to just over 2000 population per MLA). When you look at a national scale, though, a number of legislators like that simply wouldn’t be enough to represent the country. Canada as a whole has 343 MPs, which translates to about 110 000 population per MP. I have a hard time seeing a system like this but with hundreds of legislators - “too many chefs”. Plus, coordinating that sounds like a nightmare. You could reduce the number of MPs to around 20, but I’m not sure that would do the diversity of the country justice - and I’m not sure it would be enough people to take care of the sometimes much more complex issues a federal government has to deal with. I also wonder how much the first-past-the-post problem would come into play.
Personally, I would rather see a ranked ballot style system with a second house which does proportional representation, with a Swiss-style possibility for the population to force referendums on important topics. But that’s just my opinion.
It’s an interesting approach, which makes me wonder about possible failure modes. Would it be harder to scale to a larger polity and/or one further from local politics? Could it work as well with hundreds of Regular Members? Would the absence of parties have any negative effects on desirable forms of coordination, or conversely, would there be likely other forms of unofficial cliques forming or other coordination by vested interests?
Nebraska has a unicameral “non-partisan” legislature, but it effectively has party politics with Republican and Democratic parties. Political parties operate in the state legislature despite the legislature being designed to not have parties.
What likely makes the NWT work is its size and a local polity that doesn’t match national politics. At a certain size, political parties form because it is an efficient way of coordinating interests.
Interesting. I’d love to hear from locals how well they think it works.
How does the cabinet get (s)elected?
