Political pioneer passes
George Braden, first elected head of government in NWT, dies of cancer at age 65
John McFadden
Northern News Services
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The Northwest Territories has lost one of the true pioneers of its political landscape.
George Braden, the NWT's first government leader, right, is sworn in by NWT Supreme Court judge C.F. Tallis in 1980. Braden died Monday at age 65. - NNSL file photo |
George Braden, the first government leader of the Northwest Territories, died Monday night in an Ottawa hospital at age 65. Braden was only 29 when he was elected the MLA for Yellowknife North in 1979. Then in 1980, he was voted by MLAs as the first ever leader of the elected members of cabinet, and became the leader of the NWT government.
At that time, the government consisted of five elected MLAs and the federally appointed commissioner and deputy commissioners of the NWT.
It wasn't until 1994 that the NWT began calling the leader of the government "premier."
Stephen Kakfwi, former premier of the NWT from 2000 to 2003, worked with Braden many times over the years, both in politics and out. He considered Braden to be a close friend and a giant in the political development of the territory. Kakfwi said he met with Braden in the nation's capital not too long ago where learned he was suffering from gastric cancer.
"We always met two or three times in year in Ottawa, usually going for dim sum in Chinatown," said Kakfwi. "I saw him a month and a half ago after he had taken ill and we went for what was, I guess, our last dim sum together."
He put together the first political and constitutional conference in the NWT because he realized following the Berger Inquiry into the Mackenzie Valley pipeline in the late 1970s the entire political landscape of the territory had changed and various camps had become very polarized, Kakfwi said.
"He is the one who started bringing people back together under a different dynamic in the early 1980s, after the Dene declared themselves a nation, after the pipeline was defeated, after the Inuvialuit, the Metis and the Dene all stepped forward and literally seized control of the political and economic agenda of the North, " Kakfwi said.
Yellowknife Centre MLA Robert Hawkins called Braden a true father of devolution.
"He was essentially the first modern day premier of the NWT," said Hawkins.
"I do remember the history and almost folklore about him. He was the first guy who took the reins of the cabinet and the direction of the NWT away from the commissioner and started leading it at the cabinet table."
Funeral arrangements had not been made public as of press time.
