Consensus works, and the last thing the N.W.T. needs is party politics

This column is an opinion by Yellowknife political commentator David Wasylciw. For more information about CBC's Opinion section, please see the FAQ.

This has been a rough week for Northwest Territories's elected politicians. After reaching some fairly dramatic lows last year with cabinet and in the clerk's office, this fall has been dominated by discussions about (now former) MLA Steve Norn.

At this point, most readers will be aware of the events involving Mr. Norn, and there's no need to rehash them here. But, the unique thing about what happened was that at the end of the day, 17 MLAs stood up and held one of their own accountable.

This type of accountability is quite rare in Canada. Not because other politicians are exceptionally moral and good, but because when they get in trouble, the party machine closes ranks to protect its own survival and disciplinary measures are decided internally in the back rooms. Even before this week's drama, a number of people told me that, based on past experience, they didn't think MLAs would actually hold one of their own accountable. That our MLAs took action is a success of consensus government.

In jurisdictions with party politics, the party has various punishments at its disposal when a politician misbehaves. Party discipline tends to be focused more on how a transgression impacts their future election odds than actually dealing with the issue, and parties tend to rely on the hope that misbehaving politicians will resign rather than that their fellow politicians having to step in. Just look at Parliament right now and the case of Toronto MP Kevin Vuong. 

Mr. Vuong was elected this past September after appearing on the ballot as a Liberal even though two days before the election the party dropped him as a candidate. Residents of the riding have been calling for him to resign ever since. Will MPs in Parliament do anything about this? Not likely. The Liberals will be happy to forget all about this seat until the next election, not wanting to hold a byelection in a riding they may or may not win.

Consensus government, like any system of government, has its warts. While we don't get to blindly vote for candidates who have the right party letter beside their name, what we do get is to vote for the MLA that we hope will best represent us. Our politicians, rather than having to speak and vote along party lines, have the freedom to represent their constituents the way they see fit. Our system certainly isn't perfect — in recent years the high turnover of MLAs has created all kinds of challenges as new MLAs figure out what exactly their jobs are — but it works for the North. 

One of the often touted benefits of party politics is that residents somehow get more say in their governance — that it's out of the hands of pesky bureaucrats. Except, what actually happens in a party system is that power just moves to the hands of pesky political party insiders — insiders either way.

The issue of political parties in the N.W.T. comes up every so often, pretty much always from Yellowknife, and the undertone is that it will bring more focus and spending (especially to Yellowknife). The closest any of these attempts got to getting off the ground was a handful of candidates running nearly 20 years ago. Not one of those campaigns resulted in an electoral victory, or a sustained push for territorial parties. Even the MLAs who promote the idea of parties tend not to commit to the idea at election time.

At this important juncture of northern political development, we do need to re-examine ourselves. We need to start talking about what the N.W.T. will look like in 10, 20, 30 years. As more self-government agreements are signed and powers drawn down by Indigenous governments, what happens to our public government? Who coordinates regional services? There are many questions that need answers. While I certainly can't answer all of those questions, I will say for certain that the solution isn't to balkanize northerners and start building a partisan political culture. The cheap partisanship that happens in the South has no place in the N.W.T. If anything, we need northerners to come together more than we need them to separate.

Characterizing what happened this week as a failing of consensus government misses the point. Consensus meant that our elected politicians weren't caught up in partisanship and worrying about the next election. Instead they represented the will of those they serve, and acted. We need to keep building on and improving consensus government, not toss it aside for the convenience of some. We can strengthen our uniquely northern approach to governance and with it build a strong and successful N.W.T.