Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Feb 11/02) - His shoulders didn't quite fill the premier's buckskin jacket, but his diminutive size was not a factor when members' questions began spilling across the assembly floor.

Norman Wells teen Ritchie Campbell, stepping into Premier Stephen Kakfwi's shoes for a Youth Parliament session at the legislative assembly last Thursday, makes a statement to the house while his cabinet colleagues look on. - Mike W. Bryant/NNSL photo

Ritchie Campbell, along with 18 other youths from across the NWT, were in Yellowknife to walk in the shoes of their respective MLAs for a week from Feb. 3 to 7.

It was the third Youth Parliament to be held at the legislative assembly. While the real MLAs were off in the wings waiting for regular sessions to begin, the grades 9 and 10 students were getting a crash course in territorial politics.

"I thought it would be a heated battle," said Campbell, after fielding MLAs' questions on Premier Stephen Kakfwi's territorial name change proposal. "We practised a lot before coming in."

Fortunately for Kakfwi, he was out of town on a trade mission to Moscow with Canada's other premiers. Campbell, a Grade 9 student from Norman Wells, was there in his place -- his signature buckskin included.

Like the other youth MLAs, Campbell wrote an essay impressive enough to be nominated to sit in members' chairs for the parliamentary session on Thursday.

MLAs sitting on the regular members' side of the floor spoke eloquently and passionately on a number of topics, including pupil-teacher ratios, nurse shortages, and the untimely passing of Hay River fiddler Kole Crook.

Those sitting on cabinet were just as convincing in their remarks.

It was the procedural rules of the legislative assembly that took some adjustment time.

"They're hard to get use to, and there's a lot of them," Campbell said. "I had no problems speaking about anything. The first part was stepping up."

While Campbell is uncertain whether politics runs through his veins, many other students felt it was the only logical next step to take.

"I've been wanting to go into politics since the Kakisa conference (last year)," said Robyn McLeod, daughter of Deh Cho MLA Michael McLeod.

The performance by the youth parliamentarians last week was so convincing, some of their adult counterparts who attended the Thursday session joked that they had better be watching their backs two or three elections down the road.

"He's doing a good job," said Kam Lake MLA Tony Whitford, watching his junior counterpart, Ryan McGreish, perform his duties as House speaker. "I'm going to have to look over my shoulder."