SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
For someone who has broken through her fair share of glass ceilings, Nicole Latour is not one to blow her own horn.

Nicole Latour, the NWT's first Sergeant-at-Arms, recently took over as the chief electoral officer for the territory. Latour has had a long history of being involved in territorial politics, whether as the mayor of Fort Liard or working for the GNWT. For more than the past three years, she has been pushing to modernize the everyday workings of the electoral office, including a move to digitization. - Cody Punter/NNSL photo

The territory's first ever Sergeant-at-Arms was recently appointed the new chief electoral officer in the NWT. According to Yellowknife Centre MLA Robert Hawkins, her new appointment makes Latour the first aboriginal female to hold such a position in Canada.

While Hawkins' statement, which he made in the legislative assembly last week, has yet to be verified, Latour says it doesn't really matter to her if the claim turns out to be true or not - all she cares about is making sure that the next election runs as smoothly as possible.

"For me, fairness is of the utmost importance," she said.

Born in Yellowknife before being adopted by a family from Tuktoyaktuk, Latour considers herself a true Northerner. Throughout her life, she has spent time in almost every region in the NWT as well as several communities in Nunavut.

"The only place I haven't lived is the Sahtu," she said.

After moving to Hay River where she completed most of her schooling, Latour decided to pursue a degree in renewable energy management. Halfway through her studies, she realized renewable energy wasn't the field for her, so she started exploring other options.

In the following years, Latour wore many hats, from serving as mayor of Fort Liard in the mid-1990s, to manning the NWT's pavilion at the 1992 Expo in Montreal, to working as a coroner - a position she still maintains to this day. And, of course, there was her eventual stint as the NWT's first ever female Sergeant-at-Arms.

Like most other decisions she has made throughout her career, Latour said she was driven to put her name forward for the position by a desire to constantly challenge herself and to serve the public.

"Those are my motivating factors in life," she said.

Although she ended up blazing a trail for women who might want to follow in her footsteps, Latour said her decision to apply for the Sergeant-at-Arms position caught the legislative assembly off-guard at first.

"I think they were surprised a little bit just because it hadn't been done here before," she said. "Maybe surprised isn't the right word. I think they were just happy to see a woman come forward and that helped me rise to the top."

Looking back, Latour says she takes great pride in the fact that she was able to serve as a Sergeant-at Arms.

"It was quite an honour." she said.

While she regarded the position with the utmost respect, Latour is not one to shy away from a good joke and she recalls teasing fellow Sergeant-at-Arms from down south about the size of their maces.

"They just have little ones down south and ours is 22 pounds," she said. "It's really a spectacular mace in comparison."

When she finished her stint at the legislative assembly, Latour ended up working for various government departments before briefly moving to Edmonton. When she returned to Yellowknife a few years later, her old boss couldn't wait to rehire her. It was at the point that she decided to apply to work at the elections office as the deputy elections officer.

"It wasn't originally my intention but I got a lot of encouragement," Latour said.

For the past three and half years, Latour has been pushing to modernize the everyday workings of the electoral office. One of the biggest advances in this regard has been digitizing forms which are required for nominations. This move, along with several others, has streamlined the nomination process and reduced the office's reliance on paper correspondence, she said.

"In the last few years we've gone through a lot of steps to drag this office from the 1980s in the new millennium," she said.

Since taking over from David Brock as chief electoral officer on Nov. 1, Latour is hoping to continue improving on the foundations which she laid during her time as the deputy officer.

While she may not be one to make a big deal of her accomplishments, Latour said that she is living proof that aboriginal women can be successful in the North as long as they are willing to work hard.

"I think opportunities are there for women," she said. "They just need to go ahead and take them."

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