As candidates in the N.W.T. general election began canvassing this week, business advocates expressed their concerns and offered ideas for how to improve the territory’s wilting economy.
The government of Nunavut has once again flipped its position on resource development on caribou calving grounds, now supporting a "prohibition of development within calving grounds and key access corridors, with seasonal restrictions on activities in post-calving grounds."
Posted: Feb 10, 2021 5:00 AM CT | Last Updated: February 10
Procurement is the way the territory contracts goods and services, including construction. (John Last/CBC)
Widespread changes to the N.W.T. s procurement policies are needed to make things more equitable for northern and Indigenous-led businesses, according to members of the territory s business community.
The territory, through a third-party review panel, will be reviewing all its procurement policies for the first time in a decade to identify what works, what doesn t and gather some innovative ideas on how to fix them. The review is also one way the territory is also looking to speed up economic recovery as the COVID-19 pandemic stretches on.
Posted: Jan 12, 2021 6:00 AM CT | Last Updated: January 12
Empty seats at the Yellowknife airport. A report from the government of the Northwest Territories shows a 53 per cent reduction in the number of passengers coming through the airport in March 2020 compared to March 2019. (Jay Legere/ CBC)
The N.W.T. Chamber of Commerce says there s a risk the entire tourism industry could collapse if border restrictions stay up through 2021.
Renée Comeau, executive director of the N.W.T. Chamber of Commerce, told CBC the territory risks losing most, if not all, of its tourism industry if it cannot find a way to let more travellers in.
But
a May 27 confidence motion citing concerns with Nokleby s performance the first attempt to push her out of cabinet
Initially, a vocal contingent of supporters vouched for Nokleby. An
online petition to Save Minister Katrina Nokleby garnered nearly 1,500 signatures and Cochrane expressed her complete confidence in the minister.
But Nokleby faced additional ire this summer when
plucked Procurement Shared Services, which deals with such contracts, out of Nokleby s hands and placed it into those of Finance Minister Caroline Wawzonek.
Nokleby was, eventually,
In the legislature, she decried a toxic culture of secrecy [that] has allowed my character and professionalism to be disparaged, while not allowing me to respond, reply, or defend myself.