Jack Danylchuk
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 21/05) - Ready or not, like it or not, Northerners will probably find themselves in a federal election campaign through the holiday season.

Yellowknife Mayor Gord Van Tighem: "In a minority position, governments work to make people happy."

Opposition parties are poised to end the life of Prime Minister Paul Martin's minority Liberal government and election day is expected to arrive early in the new year.

Like most voters questioned by News/North, Premier Joe Handley would prefer to avoid the distraction of a federal election.

An election will divert attention from the most compelling issues facing the Territories - devolution and resource revenue sharing - for three or four months, Handley said.

A change in government would throw the timetable back even longer, said Handley.

He has "a verbal agreement from the Conservatives to continue with federal commitments to the Mackenzie Gas Project, but that can change with a new government.

"Everyone wants to reassess everything following an election."

Yellowknife Mayor Gord Van Tighem doesn't want a federal election.

"In a minority position, governments work to make people happy," Van Tighem observed.

"We've benefited quite dramatically from the attention we've been given by the current government."

Van Tighem thinks the most compelling issues for the Territories are the progress toward greater involvement of municipal and community governments with Ottawa.

"We've been making pretty good strides, so we would want to make sure that doesn't go away," he said.

"Territorially, we're concerned with the ongoing negotiations for devolution and resource revenue sharing. That would need to be bridged in any change in government."

National media obsession with John Gomery's inquiry into the sponsorship scandal is not likely to spill over to the Northwest Territories, Van Tighem said.

He regards Northern voters as well-informed on national issues, but Gomery's report earlier this year "had an impact for one day. It was a non-event."

Opposition party candidates disagree, and say that an election is needed to clear the air after Gomery's report.

Conservative Richard Edjericon said "the Liberals had 12 or 13 years of power and nothing has changed - they can't be trusted."

Edjericon sees unresolved Akaitcho and Dehcho land claims as key issues in the campaign.

Added to those are economic development flowing from the Mackenzie Gas Project, devolution and resource revenue sharing.

"Health and the social agenda are always big issues here in the North," said Edjericon, a former chief of the Yellowknives Dene.

The NDP's Dennis Bevington, an energy consultant, Fort Smith small businessman and chair of the Aurora College board of governors, will take a third run at unseating incumbent Ethel Blondin-Andrew.

"I'm going to offer what I've offered in the last two elections - a voice in parliament that respects what the people of the North want in terms of their own development," he said.

Bevington said that the people of Northwest Territories have been ignored, and cited "manipulation of the environmental assessment process, and appointments to boards that don't represent the wishes of Northerners."

Van Tighem also expects Blondin-Andrew to win easily, despite her close call in the last vote.

Blondin-Andrew, minister of state for Northern development, won by just 53 votes over Bevington, and "the radar went up. She spent more time in the larger centres, which wasn't the case the last time," Van Tighem said.