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Bob McLeod reigns supreme Yellowknife South MLA chosen as new premier of the NWTGalit Rodan Northern News Services Published Friday, October 28, 2011
"It feels great," he said. "This is something I've been working toward for a long time and it's taken a lot of hard work."
The territorial leadership committee meeting began at 9 a.m. with the selection of Nunakput MLA Jackie Jacobson as the speaker of the house. The premiership race commenced shortly thereafter with speeches from the three candidates - McLeod, Michael Miltenberger (Thebacha) and Kevin Menicoche (Nahendeh).
Two rounds of questions followed, in which the candidates responded to a variety of issues including poverty, the cost of living, the environment, affirmative action, health promotion and achieving more consensus in consensus government.
Voting took place around 12:25 p.m. with each of the 19 MLAs casting a vote by secret ballot. The details of the vote will never be released but McLeod emerged victorious, the third Yellowknife MLA to be selected premier of the NWT.
McLeod was acclaimed in his riding, as were premiers Floyd Roland and Joe Handley before him. Not a single vote has been cast from the public for a premier since 1999 when Stephen Kakfwi was elected by voters to represent Sahtu before being chosen as premier.
McLeod said he will continue to try to improve voter engagement, a goal that was part of his campaign platform in the 2007 territorial election.
"I want to ask the citizens to become more involved, to attend meetings, to find out what we're doing," he said.
He acknowledged there was an "appetite" to revisit the NWT's government-building process, particularly the selection of premier. An electoral boundaries review is required every second assembly, said McLeod, and "the suggestion is we can pose those questions as part of the electoral boundaries review, when they go around to all the communities ... to get feedback on selection of premier, how consensus government works, whether there should be political parties, how to improve voter engagement - those types of things."
McLeod said there will be challenges in the coming term.
"We still don't have devolution. The aboriginal governments don't all have land claims and self-government. We have significant infrastructure challenges ... we're one of only two jurisdictions in Canada to see our population decline."
However, McLeod also said there were many opportunities ahead. He spoke of himself as an inclusive and collaborative politician, open to new ideas and able to build consensus. He said one of his first orders of business will be to reach out to aboriginal leaders and try to mend what many MLAs said is a "fractured relationship" between the GNWT and aboriginal governments.
"I think we will see this perhaps as the government that has forged a relationship with aboriginal governments so that we're all working together," he said. "And I think once that happens a lot of these challenges will just fall by the wayside and we can go together to Ottawa, speak with a united voice and get things done and agreed to."
McLeod was born and raised in Fort Providence. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Alberta, and an Honours Diploma in administrative management from the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology. He completed a program of national and international studies at the National Defence College in Kingston, Ont., including a thesis on aboriginal self-government and the possibilities for constitutional reform. He and his wife Melody have one son, Warren, and two grandsons, Carter and Cooper.
McLeod has served one term in the legislative assembly, elected first in 2007 to represent Yellowknife South. Last term, he served as minister, of Human Resources; Industry, Tourism and Investment; and has been minister responsible for the Public Utilities Board, lead minister on New Energy Initiatives and lead minister for the Mackenzie Valley Gas Pipeline Project.
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