Directive causes confusion among would-be NWT election candidates
Chief electoral officer to issue clarification on earlier decree forbidding campaigning before writ drops
John McFadden
Northern News Services
Monday, September 7, 2015
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A directive intended to clarify the rules of campaigning during the NWT pre-election period has caused confusion among some sitting MLAs and declared candidates.
The directive sent out to media by Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Nicole Latour on Aug. 28 stated "no person who may be a candidate in the Nov. 23, 2015 territorial election shall campaign or otherwise promote his or her anticipated candidacy until their nominations papers have been filed and accepted."
A news release attached to the directive stated it was meant to clarify the rules regarding campaigning during the pre-election period.
Yellowknife resident Julie Green, who intends to run in Yellowknife Centre, de-activated her election Twitter account on Aug. 31 after Latour told her the account amounted to campaigning before the writ had dropped. This is anticipated to happen Oct. 26.
As of Sept. 3, Green's Twitter account was back up and running.
"The mistake I made on the Twitter feed was describing myself as a candidate," Green told News/North.
She said Jackie Jacobson, Speaker of the legislative assembly, stepped in to clarify what potential candidates can and cannot do before the election campaign officially begins.
However, in a news release sent to media Sept. 4, both Tim Mercer, the Clerk of the legislative assembly, and Jackie Jacobson, Speaker of the legislative assembly, stated that this information from Green was false.
"There seems to be a view that I have issued a directive overriding a decision of the CEO," stated Jacobson in the news release. "Nothing could be further from the truth. The chief electoral officer and I had a productive discussion earlier this week. I passed on to her some of the concerns and uncertainties that were brought to my attention about her recent ruling. She is in the process of reviewing these concerns and will communicate directly with potential candidates and the public in due course."
Weledeh MLA Bob Bromley can confirm that Green did not receive the clarification from Jacobson.
"I gave it to Julie. What the document said was that (Latour) would be clarifying things in a press release for everybody," Bromley said.
"I was concerned that we, as MLAs, knew that, but future candidates out there didn't. Any candidate that I knew of that I had an e-mail for I sent a copy to because it was not marked confidential. It turns out it was confidential but not marked as such."
Mercer said Latour will likely send out a clarification to her directive later this week.
"(Last) Wednesday afternoon, the Speaker met with the chief electoral officer to just express some concerns that have been expressed to him about her directive – basically uncertainty as to what it meant," Mercer said.
"The CEO agreed to come away from that meeting, review the directive and issue a clarification on exactly what it meant. She has not issued that clarification just yet. She is still speaking with her lawyers and reviewing it and we expect something will come out next week."
Latour told News/North in an earlier interview that part of the reason that she issued the directive is because some NWT voters have three elections, federal, municipal and territorial in just over a month. She said she was simply trying to avoid voter fatigue and confusion by issuing the directive with her interpretation of the campaign rules.
A 2011 election report written by Latour's predecessor David Brock states there is nothing in the NWT Elections and Plebiscites Act that prohibits declared candidates from campaigning before the writ drops.
Latour was not available for comment as of press time.
