New premier selection process shows consensus government can change if MLAs want it to

For as long as the Northwest Territories has had an elected legislature, there have been complaints about the workings of the consensus government system.

The most recent territorial election campaign was no different, with demands for more transparency, less power in the hands of the executive and more collaboration with regular members. Many candidates ran on promises of more transparency and voters gave reformers a mandate to tweak the system by electing 11 new faces to the Legislative Assembly late last month.

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It seems the Class of 2015 has no intention of dilly dallying on reforms to the territorial leadership committee, the process used to select a speaker, premier and cabinet.

The announcement Monday that candidates for premier would step forward and make their pitches a week before the actual vote takes place marks a major change. It creates new space in the process for the MLAs who aren't running for the top job to consult their constituents on whom to vote for, says Tim Mercer, the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly.

"I certainly don't think it's the expectation that there would be a formal public campaign but it is an expectation that there would be a public discussion about the people who put their names forward," he said.

'I don't know what's going to happen. Nobody does'

The push for change originated with the 11 new members who were elected in November's territorial election, with approval from all 19 MLAs, said Kam Lake MLA Kieron Testart. "That's a situation we haven't seen before, where the balance of power or the majority share are incoming members," he said. "And I think that gives us, all 19 MLAs, the opportunity to shake up the status quo."

Before, the jockeying for premier was done almost entirely in secret, with horse-trading, cajoling and doubtless a few threats. Some of that will probably still happen. But what we have now is essentially a miniature public campaign for the premiership. This is an entirely new wrinkle to the process and nobody really knows what to expect.

"I don't know what's going to happen," Testart said. "Nobody does."

For one, there are no rules outlining what happens between the aspiring premiers' speeches and the vote. Mercer said there are no rules barring candidates from, say, buying ads urging people to tell their MLA who to vote for, though he stresses that no public money would be earmarked for such a purpose.

Another change for the 18th Legislative Assembly is the priorities meeting — where each MLA has a chance to state their personal objectives for the coming session — will for the first time be open to the public. It will take place on the floor of the assembly, "with TV cameras on and the gallery open," Mercer said.

New MLAs did take a pass on a proposal from the last assembly's transition committee that would have tweaked the process to elect the premier after cabinet (instead of before). Among other things, that proposal would've made it easier to ensure an underrepresented group (for example, women), receive a cabinet seat.

Testart said MLAs did discuss this idea, but opted for their own changes instead. He said there was also talk about applying the new system to cabinet too, but Testart believes the changes as they are represent a good first step.

Are partisan politics inevitable?

Because the consensus system is still a Westminster-based system — where much of what happens is based on convention, not law — there`s nothing preventing like-minded people from forming political parties and vying for control of the legislature.

That's what happened in Yukon in the 1970s after Ottawa devolved executive power from the commissioner to the MLAs, says northern constitutional expert Kirk Cameron. 

"There's nothing stopping the body politic from allowing a lot of things to change if they choose to do it," Cameron said. "Party politics is a good example of that." Despite the occasional rumblings about the inevitability of partisan government, it still hasn't caught on.

There are some exceptions: the federal Northwest Territories Act requires the assembly to select a speaker on its first sitting day. "Essentially pretty much everything else is within their authority to change," Mercer said.

During the campaign, a few candidates floated the idea of putting the election of the premier directly to a popular vote. Cameron says the direct election of a premier by the people, something that happens in virtually no other Westminster parliament, would probably require a federal amendment.

The new, lengthier process for picking the premier represents a more doable alternative. In this case, Mercer said, MLAs got a quick primer from assembly staff on what is and isn't allowed, and formulated the new system from there.

The lesson here is that consensus government is not immutable, but it does require MLAs who are interested in changing the system. The question is how long this impulse for change will last.