Lynn Lau
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Nov 18/02) - Elections are coming up for hamlet and settlement councils this December. For everyone else, elections are another time.

Gail Cyr, chief municipal electoral officer for Municipal and Community Affairs. - NNSL file photo

The NWT is home to 32 communities that fall under eight designations, according to territorial legislation. Ever wonder what the difference is between all these types of communities?

For help in unravelling the mystery, News/North turned to Gail Cyr, chief municipal electoral officer for Municipal and Community Affairs -- which means she knows her hamlets, settlements and charter communities.

"It is complicated," Cyr concurs. She fields questions about community types all the time.

First, there's cities, towns and villages. We all know Yellowknife is a city. And for towns, there's Fort Smith, Hay River, Inuvik and Norman Wells. Then there's one lonely village -- Fort Simpson. Cities, towns and villages are tax-based communities, meaning they have enough property owners in their boundaries to collect enough property taxes to run their municipal operations.

The differences between cities, towns and villages is simply the amount of assessed property values they have, with cities having the most and villages the least.

As they follow the normal calendar year, elections are held in October to allow the new council time to prepare budgets and settle in before the start of the year in January.

Every other community in the NWT is a non-tax-based community, which means there aren't enough property owners to merit collecting property taxes locally.

In those situations, the territorial government collects taxes itself and redistributes money to the local authorities to run municipal services.

Of non-tax-based communities, there are three types: hamlets, charter communities and settlements.

There are 10 hamlets: Aklavik, Fort Liard, Fort McPherson, Fort Providence, Holman, Paulatuk, Rae-Edzo, Sachs Harbour, Tuktoyaktuk and Tulita. These have full bylaw-making authority, but unlike the tax-based communities, they can't take any long term loans.

An NWT creation

Charter communities are an NWT creation that aim to combine off-reserve First Nations government with public municipal government. "The issue was that if bands weren't on reserves, then they didn't have law-making authority," Cyr explains.

"So then you couldn't limit the speed limit or appoint dog officers on their own local level."

The creation of charter communities was an attempt to give the bands municipal powers.

There are four charter communities: Deline, Fort Good Hope, Tsiigehtchic and Wha Ti.

The band councils, created under the federal Indian Act, still exist separately from the municipal government but half the seats on the band council automatically get seats on the charter community council.

Then, there are settlements. These are non-tax-based communities that have limited municipal, powers often because they're simply too small.

"If you have a really small community you have a difficult time handling any other kinds of authorities other than your basic water deliveries and sewage pickup," Cyr says.

Hamlets and settlements have their elections in December, the idea being that December is the time of year that hunters and trappers are most likely to be in town. The non-tax-based communities run on a fiscal year instead of a calendar year, so their year end is March 31.

Because of their agreement with the territorial government, charter communities can set their elections whenever they want.

Finally there are the First Nations governments. On reserves -- K'atlodeechee (Hay River Dene) and Salt River First Nation -- the band councils get their law-making authority from the Indian Act, separate from the territorial government.

Those First Nations governments that don't have reserves, called First Nations designated authorities, still offer municipal services, but they're contracted by the territory to provide the services.

There are nine such authorities: Dettah, Jean Marie River, Kakisa, Lutsel K'e, Nahanni Butte, Rae Lakes, Trout Lake, Wekweti and Wrigley.