Nuanced. - 261. Premier R.J. Simpson: Is the Northwest Territories the Key to Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty?

Episode Date: August 17, 2026

Northwest Territories Premier R.J. Simpson joins to discuss Mark Carney’s northern investments, Indigenous self-government, the decline of the diamond industry, the, threats from Russia and China, critical minerals and how northern communities can benefit from Canada’s emerging Arctic strategy with host Aaron Pete.Correction: During the interview, Premier R.J. Simpson referenced approximately $645 million in recent housing investment in the Northwest Territories. The correct figure is approximately $465 million. This was corrected by their team post-interview. Send us Fan MailSupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

Premier Simpson, why not become a province? Well, I think one thing is that there's 45,000 people over 1.3 million square kilometers, and it's just a lot. It's a lot to govern. But the territories, everything north of the 60th parallel essentially, one way to look at it, their federal land claim areas. What do you think of Prime Minister Mark Carney? I think that he is like a second MP for the Northwest Territories in a lot of ways. You know, we have one MP, Minister Alti, who's the Minister of Indigenous Crown Relations.

but the Prime Minister, you know, born in the Northwest Territories, and I can tell he feels that connection to the North still. When I talk about Fort Smith where he was born, he kind of lights up a little bit. Is Arctic sovereignty being done with the North or to it? I would say it's being done with the North at this point, but there's a lot of work yet to be done. When your term ends, what result would force you to say publicly that you failed,

even if you get re-elected? Premier Simpson, thank you so much for being willing to join us today, It's a privilege to have you on the show. Would you mind briefly introducing yourself for our audience who might not be acquainted? Sure. I'm R.J. Simpson. I'm the Premier of the Northwest Territories. One of the two MLAs here in the community of Hay River. Premier, most of our audience is in British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario, and many have never visited the Northwest Territories.

So I just want to begin with a basic picture. You govern approximately 45,800 people spread across around 33 communities and more than 1.3 million square kilometers, roughly half the population lives in Yellowknife, while the other half of residents identify as indigenous. For someone who has only seen the North on a map, what is the Northwest Territories really like, and what do Southern Canadians most often misunderstand about your region?

Well, the North, as you just described, the North is big. That's the one thing that every time I travel, I realize how big the North is, were as big as Alberta and Saskatchewan combined. And there's communities from the southeast corner up to the northwest corner. And so to get around, it takes quite a bit. It's not cheap and it takes time. So just the scale, I think, is something that people have a hard time understanding.

You know, we're relatively similar in size to Ontario. But in Ontario, the vast majority of people are centered in a very, very small area. Whereas here, like I said, we're spread out everywhere. So it's really a land of extremes in that way. We have a very low population density, very large size, extreme climate. So in the winters, you know, this winter especially here in the region I'm in on December 1st, I think it hit minus 30. And we had a few days that were warmer than that. But we probably had three or four months where it was in the 30s consistently.

So it's a big place. It's tough climate. And it's not for everyone, but it is beautiful. That's the one thing about the north is that it is, there's so many different landscapes. And one thing I'm always excited about is, you know, we're working. I'm sure we'll get into this, but we have some big construction projects. and the McKinsey Valley Highway is one. And when I think about that,

I think about how amazing it's going to be to drive from anywhere in southern Canada, up through the Northwest Territories, up to the Arctic Ocean, and then back down the Dempster Highway through the Yukon. That's going to be one of the world's great drives. So this is a, it's a beautiful place.

Could you describe the culture? Like for many people, they know what a Vancouverite looks like, often leaving a Starbucks or a local coffee shop. What can you describe for listeners, just the culture? Yeah. So in the number of,

Northwest Territories we have, as you mentioned, half the population lives in Yellowknife. And Yellowknife is a very modern city. It's mostly, or there's a lot of government employees there, mine workers there, so there's a lot of money in the community, highest household income for the last couple decades along with Fort McMurray, and a lot of amenities, a lot of things to do, events to go to, if you have kids, a lot of things, your kids can be busy every single night, and it's primarily non-indigenous. Once you get outside of Yellowknife, we have a few regional centers, we call them. They're smaller communities. So I'm in the second largest community right now in the Northwest Territories. Hey River, my hometown, 3,500 people. And that's the second largest. And so outside,

and again, this is, once you start getting into the regional centers, the demographics change of it. So there's a greater indigenous proportion of the population, less non-indigenous. And then once you get outside of those few regional centers, you get into the small communities. They could have 50 to a few hundred people. and those are, you know, 80 to 90 to 95 to 99% indigenous. And so in southern Canada, people might be used to seeing a reserve with that type of population. And that's what we have in the territory is essentially communities I think if they were in northern Saskatchewan, northern Manitoba, they might be considered reserves. You grew up in hate... And I'll just say too, and those are dengue communities for the most part.

We also have Métis populations across the territory. And in the far north, we have the Inuit, the Inuit, and they have a number of... of communities up there as well. And so even within the territory as you travel around, there's different languages. We have 11 official languages, including French and English, and different cultures going back many years. So it's quite the mix. Well, thank you for sharing that. You grew up in Hay River. Your grandfather was a river captain, and you worked for the Northern Transportation Company before becoming a lawyer and eventually, now Premier. How did growing up in Hay River shape your understanding of the territory differently

than if you had grown up in Yellowknife. Yeah, so I grew up in Hay River, but I also moved around. My dad went to school. He got a few degrees. And so we lived actually in Montana for a few years when I was younger in Vancouver when he was going to UBC to law school. And then when I was going to school, I moved around. I was in Colonna. I was in Edmonton.

I was in Calgary. So I've had a lot of experience outside of Hay River. And I think that really highlighted the contrast between the Northwest Territories and really the rest of Canada. When you travel around the rest of Canada, you see what's there, you see the amenities, you see the access to different services to things just like entertainment, you can go to concerts, and then you come up north and it's much different. And I will admit, being from Hay River, we have it pretty good here relative to the rest of the territory. You know, we have, I always think we have a home hardware here and the prices are really what you're going to pay in somewhere like

Edmonton. And so I have access to those types of things. Whereas I've learned, I learned something every day in this job, but as you travel around outside of the Yellowknife and the regional centers, you really get a much better understanding that life in the communities is markedly different than life in the capital. If you want medical care, you need to travel. You might have to travel a day to get medical care. And so I think that I'm almost embarrassed

about how little I knew about the territory when I first became an MLA because I've been learning something every single day since then. What brings you back? Many people will hear this. They'll hear the extreme weather conditions. they'll hear about some of the natural disasters that you guys have had to work through as of late and go, who, why?

Like, you come down to Colonna, you go to UBC, you see how easy life can be. What pulls you home? Well, I mean, all across Canada now, people are facing natural disasters. So I think that's something that's becoming more common. But I was going to school and I would come back in the summers. I was going down south. I'd come back in the summers and I would see how the town had changed. You know, stores had closed.

It was just different. And so I got these little snapshots, little four-month snapshots. And I could see that, okay, I want to do something here in the north. It's the town is not the town I grew up. And there's less to do, less things for kids to do, less things for adults to do. And, you know, not as many opportunities as there used to be. And so that's really why I want to get back into politics. And the north is the land of opportunity.

Like I, you know, it's unbelievable the things that you can accomplish up here. Even if you are, you know, a government employee. I've spoken to some folks who they were the lead legislative council on major pieces of legislation. They were in their early 30s. They said, if I was in Ontario, I'd need 30 years of experience just to be leading this file. And so you can do a lot of very, very interesting things in the Northwest Territories. Fascinating. The Northwest Territories has no governing party or formal opposition.

The 19 MLAs select the Premier and Cabinet from among themselves. supporters say this produces collaboration, but Cabinet still tends to vote together while responsibility can become difficult for the public to trace. Does consensus government encourage cooperation or allow leaders to avoid accountability? It definitely encourages cooperation. And I wouldn't be in politics if we didn't have consensus government here in the territory. There's just something about it that draws me to it. And so the way it works is, you know, say, for example, a parliamentary system down south in one of the provinces or anywhere other than Nunavut in Canada, really. The government creates legislation, they create bills.

And then the day the public sees that is the day the rest of the legislator see that or the opposition would see that. Here, you know, we provide our proposed budget to the regular members they're called, to those who aren't in cabinet in December. And it's not really, it's not debated until February March and not passed until March. And so there's a long lead up for members. to actually see what the budget is and see if it reflects their priorities. And then there's always negotiations back and forth with cabinet.

But if all goes well throughout the year, there's not big things to be negotiated because as ministers, we're in front of those regular members in committee in the House, and we hear what they have to say. There's 11 regular members and seven cabinet ministers. So we're always in a perpetual minority. So we need to work together. If we don't, we'll have budgets defeated and the government just won't function.

It also gives the small communities a bigger voice. That's personally how I feel. If we had party politics, I imagine Yellowknife would really control really everything in the territory. And so because we have this collaborative relationship, it really gives a small community members a voice. Is there a lesson you think other provinces can learn from your approach? I'm sure there's lots of lessons that they can learn from our approach. politics doesn't need to be so oppositional. You know, when I see a party taking a stance and then an opposition party taking another stance

and acting offended that this other party is doing this thing, which is, you know, it's just the normal course of government, but you have to act offended because you're, you know, at loggerheads, it's a battle between the two parties. It doesn't need to be that way. Collaboration gets you a lot farther. That's one thing I noticed during this government is we really push to collaborate, not just with the other members of the Assembly, but with indigenous governments.

And we see the progress that we've made taking that approach versus the progress that was made in the past when the government would try to do things alone, maybe try to bring in the indigenous governments after the fact or things like that. So working together, it's better for everyone. Premier Simpson, why not become a province?

You've laid out points as to where there would create challenges, the pros and cons. Can you explain to me, why you're not interested in trying to become a province? Well, I think one thing is that there's 45,000 people over 1.3 million square kilometers, and it's just a lot. It's a lot to govern. But the territories, everything north of the 60th parallel essentially, one way to look at it, they're federal land claim areas.

And we're the public government of a federal land claim area. Everything north of the 60th parallel is covered under land claims. And so in the territory, here we have some settled modern land claims in the northern part of the territory. And in the south, southern part of the territory, there's still negotiations. But eventually, every part of the territory is going to be covered by land claim agreements, which will lead to self-government agreements, which will lead to indigenous governments, indigenous people, taking on the responsibilities of a province or of the public government in many cases.

And so for us to try to move towards a provincial status, it doesn't line up with what's actually happening on the ground, where we're actually moving towards a situation. where the indigenous governments in the regions will have ultimate authority over many, many things. And the territorial public government will play a different role that's yet to be seen. It could be a coordinating role. It could be sort of a role that focuses on working with Ottawa. So it's unclear yet what that's going to be. But we're just on a different trajectory.

There's something interesting about that. I don't know if you see our British Columbia politics, but we're having a bit of a meltdown over here. because of these land claims, because of the Cowichin decision and how that might interact with Fisimple Title. And I understand there are concerns. I've interviewed many people who are concerned. But you seem like you're in a different circumstance. The idea of co-governance, the idea of these land claims doesn't seem to panic you or your region as much as it's panicking us in the Vancouver area. Can you just walk us through your perspective of watching us work through this?

Well, this is something that was existing when I came into all. office. This has been the course that the territory has been on since the 70s when there was the Univaluat started negotiating their final agreement. There was the Denei-Meti Comprehensive Land Claim that would have covered the entire territory. And so this has been going on since before I was born. So this is just the world that exists and people aren't shocked by it because it's nothing new. So there's also the difference in population. Half the population is indigenous. Imagine if 20 million Canadians were indigenous. Just the difference in politics that would make nationally. And so it's just a completely different mentality up here. And, you know, BC's a very unique

situation, you know, settled without treaties and, you know, brought into confederation. And there's all these things going on there. And it's different population densities. So they're just, you know, Canada is such a big place that we can have, you know, within the same country, you have two completely different realities. And I think that's, that's reflected in those differences. Correct me if I'm wrong. But you've described a future in which indigenous governments exercise more authority and the territorial government exercises less. That is a striking vision for a premier because institutions rarely surrender power voluntarily. What specific jurisdiction, budget, or government function are you looking at being prepared

to transfer? Well, it's all up to the indigenous government on what they want to, what authority they want to draw down, it's called. And so right now there's some governments looking at things like education, child and family services, some of those areas first. But whatever people want to, whatever services and programs people want to deliver, indigenous governments want to deliver, I'm supportive of that. There's, that's the whole idea of self-determination.

Like, you know, in the Northwest Territories, we get to do cool things like that. Like, like, you know, transfer power from the public government to the indigenous governments. And I think that's, it's an exciting thing to be part of. Could you just describe to me, like, when I think of Ontario politics or federal politics, So many people are clamoring to move up the hierarchy, get more power, attain it, tell other people what to do, change the system for either lobbyists or whatever their vision of the world needs to be. How does that differ within your territory? How does the thinking about power and authority change when you're in a region like yours? Well, I guess personally, I always like to see power at the grassroots level.

like I said, self-determination. You know, in the territory here we do, the public government is always going to be around. We're always going to be delivering programs and services. There are some things that cut across, you know, any sort of land claim borders. You know, wildfires are an example. That might be an area where the territorial government

is always there to fight wildfires just because they move across jurisdiction so quickly. But in terms of the other types of power, I don't need to be the premier of the government that delivers income assistance programs, you know, if the communities don't like how something's being delivered, if they think they can deliver something better that's more culturally appropriate, then why not?

I mean, they're the rights holders. They have the ability to do that. And the territory, there's a lot of difference between us and Ontario as well. I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of big money in Ontario. There's big corporations. There's these different things. We don't really have that here in the Northwest Territories. You know, that being said, there's always,

there's decisions to be made where everyone, I think, wants to share the power. But at the end of the day, you sometimes need one person to be able to point to and say, you are accountable for making this decision. And so we do run into issues with that. A lot of the indigenous governments that we meet with, and we meet with them very regularly, you know, want to have a say in, you know, issuing these types of licenses or doing these types of things. and to piecemeal that, it's a little difficult. So I'm all for, you know, wholesale transfer of authority over certain areas.

But when it's, okay, let's both make decisions on these, you know, statutory issuances of permits or something. And even that's not off the table. It just makes it more complicated, more difficult. And especially if a small First Nation doesn't even have a settled land claim. And they might only have three staff, four staff in their office. And they're expected to do every single thing that, you know, First Nation governments are expected to do. bands are expected as to do, and it's a lot. It's just not practical at this point, but, you know, I'm happy to share as much of that authority as we can in a way that allows the territory to

continue to be governable. Once you have so many such a dispersed authority, things can get complicated. And so I am live to that issue that we don't, we want to make sure that this is a place where if you're coming here to do work, if you want to do, you know, mineral exploration, that there's a clear path for you. And so that's the only thing that I I'm really concerned about is making sure that it's still a reasonable and practical place to live, work, and new business. During the 2023 election, you said you wanted people's lives to be, quote, noticeably better. What are the measurable results by which residents should judge your premiership?

Well, you know, we're three, just over, well, almost three years into this government now. And the first year is always planning. And then the second year, you're trying to implement those plans. And now we're kind of seeing those plans pay off. So the other day, kudos to my housing minister. We had a massive housing announcement. So we have a deal with the federal government. We're looking at 560 homes are going to be built in the coming years because of that. So right there is something that's going to be tangible for a lot of people. We have a lot of homes that are overcrowded. We have a lot of social housing units that should have been replaced 20 years ago. And we're going to be able to do those types of things now. So there's a very practical on the ground

example of people being able to live in a home that is safe. We're also, we took a lot of measures when it comes to public safety. We've had a lot of wildfires, we've had floods. In 2022, I was evacuated from my home. In 2023, I was evacuated twice for a total of about two months. And so these things have an impact on people. And there was days I woke up or I went to bed. I didn't know if my community was going to be there in the morning. And so we've taken steps to implement a world or sorry, wildland urban interface firefighters. who are in communities who help protect assets as the wildland firefighters are in the forest doing that work. And I really credit that program to saving a lot of structures in the community of

Fort Simpson that was just evacuated. And so the fact people have homes to go back to now, I think that's an improvement that might not have occurred. So another big thing I wanted to do was just make people's interactions with government better. Often I've found that government programs, policies, application forms, they're designed for the ease of the bureaucracy. not the ease of the people who actually need to fill those things out or receive those programs. And so we're also making efforts to streamline all of that as well. There's no need to have people upset at government just because we can't get out of our own way. And so right from that sort of those little minor inconveniences that you deal with government up to the streamlining to make business easier,

to those other things I mentioned, those are sort of the tangible things that I want to see change when we come out of this. And I can get into healthcare as well about making things better for people. But yeah, there's a lot we'd like to get done up here. Can you share a little bit about how healthcare gets delivered under your regional circumstances? It's got to be so much different than having a main, just easy hospital because you have communities that may be hours away from the hospital. So transportation becomes a big thing. And I watched your throne speech on what your vision was and just talking about the travel distances people have to go through. Could you just share a little bit about that experience?

Yeah, so we have one hospital, like a big hospital with a lot of services in Yellowknife. And so a lot of people from all over the territory have to come to Yellowknife to get services to see specialists. We do have regional hospitals as well and they have more basic care. They don't always have the facilities to provide services. And then once Yellowknife can provide a service, then we have Edmonton. Or maybe it's Vancouver depending on the service. And so it's not uncommon for people to travel from the high Arctic to Yellowknife to Edmonton. And we're talking thousands and thousands of kilometers and days of travel to get services that, you know, if you lived in the suburb of a city, you would just spend a 45 minute drive getting to.

And so we're trying to change how health care is delivered. It's still being delivered in the small communities the way it was, you know, back in the 70s when the federal government was delivering health care here. things have changed. The personnel that are available of change, technology has changed. So what our health minister, who has a background, she's a nurse by trade, wants to do and is doing, is bringing services closer to home for people.

So they don't have to travel that distance. And that's by making sure that practitioners can work to their full scope of work, that we're better utilizing technology. So people don't need to always lead the community. And really trying to free up some time for the community health nurses, to do some preventative work as well. So preventative education or education on preventative care. Because if we don't have to have people flying into Yellowknife to get services,

that, first of all, it saves a bunch of money on flights. It saves people's time. It stops any backlogs that are happening at the big hospital. So, yeah, there's a lot of changes that we're making. We're really trying to focus on the small communities at this point, as well as working with the federal government on expanding the infrastructure that we have, with all of the military investments being made. The government of Canada is well aware that our health infrastructure can barely support

the people we have now. And if there's an influx of military personnel or there's a need for them to use our services, we need to be brought up into the 21st century in terms of that. So we're also working with them on upgrading our systems across the territory. I want to get into Arctic sovereignty, but can you help me understand the economy? My understanding is that it's shifting from diamond mining over to potentially more military and Arctic sovereignty work. Can you just explain to me what the economy has historically been within the Northwest territories? Yeah, well, we've always been a resource-based economy.

And so up until the 90s and the 80s, there was gold. And that started to wind down in the 90s. And then people thought, well, what are we going to do? Gold is the backbone of our industry, and the diamonds were discovered. And then the diamond mines ramped up and started opening the late 90s, early 2000s. And then we've had the diamond mines for the past 25 years. They're all now reaching the end of their natural life. There's been changes in the diamond markets, lab grown diamonds are a tenth of the cost of natural diamonds.

There's been consumer habit changes in places like China especially that have impacted the market. And so it's a, as well as the tariffs. I mean, most of our diamonds go to India to get cut. And for a while there, there was a 50% tariff on India by the United States. And so we would send something to India to get cut. And now the price, and when it goes back to the United States where most of the world's diamonds go, it had a 50% markup. And so that really hurt the industry as well. So we've had one mine who would have shut down, another mine that's in creditor protection,

and then another mine that only has a few years left on their planned life. So that, the diamond mines are coming to an end. And we also had Norman Wells is one of the communities where they've been producing oil for over 100 years. And they are stopping production this year as well. And those are our big resource producers, those things that I mentioned there. And so those are winding down. And so what's next on the horizon? Well, there is the massive investments in military infrastructure in Yellow Life end up in Nuvik.

And those are the pre-procurement announcement was $5 billion in each of the, those communities, it could be more, I'm not sure. And so that's having an impact, even for things like municipal infrastructure. They're working with the municipality to help them upgrade their infrastructure. So we're seeing benefits like that. But that still just, that's government employment, right? That's government money. And really what we need is an industry.

And so we have some major projects that we're working on that are really going to, you know, I hope create more development in the territory. Your government expects resident employment to decline by approximately four 400 people this year. Total debt is projected to be 2.2 billion and the federal transfers provide 80% of revenue. The strongest criticism is that governments knew the diamond era would end but failed to build a replacement economy. Do you think that the Northwest Territory squandered at the diamond runway? Well, someone who got into office and then, you know, my first week in office, a diamond mine shut down. And this was back in when I was first elected in 2015. So I came into the

tail end of that. And yes, I would have liked to see more investments made on certain things like, for example, the three diamond mines, the, well, the one and a half diamond mines we have now, I guess, they, every year they have built a winter road. So a road that mostly crosses lakes. And every year, that costs $25 million to build. And they've been doing that for 25 years. Now imagine if we invested that money and actually building an all-season road up to that area, even with the mines closed, we would still have an all-season road to a region where it's one of the most resource-rich areas on the planet. And having transportation up there would bring down costs for exploration for development. And so we actually could have had new mines opening in the meantime over the past few years.

But without that, you know, we don't. And so, you know, I'm not going to say we squandered. I wasn't in government at that time. So, you know, there's a lot of different pressures. It's hard to say, you know, what's what? but, you know, I would have liked to see more forward-thinking work done to support us as we move past the Diamond era. After years of engagement, your government has now abandoned plans for an indigenous procurement policy and will initially use its new indigenous business definition only to collect data.

The Denai Nation calls that a lack of political will and your government has said there is no consensus and that the policy change could have unintended effects. Why is data collection an adequate outcome after five years of work? Well, I wouldn't say there was five years of work. There was a political commitment made in a previous government that then carried over into this government. And I would say, what problem are we trying to solve? What's the issue we're dealing with?

How many indigenous businesses do we have? And we don't have an answer to how many indigenous businesses do we have or what is an indigenous business? It's really hard to develop a program. So there was an idea for a program, but we didn't have anything to implement that program. And so we worked with, went out to the different indigenous governments in the territory. There was no consensus on what an indigenous business was.

Some indigenous governments wanted it to be, you know, their list of people, businesses who they wanted on there. Others, you know, had different ideas. And so without even a starting point of what an indigenous business is, it was really hard to actually create an indigenous procurement policy. Is Arctic sovereignty being done with the North or to it? I would say it's being done with the North at this point, but there's a lot of work yet to be done. There's been no construction to date.

Well, there's been a little bit. There's been a project that's actually been going on since the Trudeau government up in Anuvik in terms of an airport expansion. But the announcements were made by the federal government without, I would say there wasn't consultation on should we, in increase our military capability in the Arctic. We didn't have that consultation, but the federal government has a responsibility to defend Canada, defend North America. And so I understand that there is military installations up here. And if you look at the rest of the circumpolar world, we are really, we really lack

infrastructure in the north, in Canada's north, relative to every other circumpolar world. And so when the world is the way it is now, when you have the United States saying, do we need to do more on Arctic defense, when you see Russia is becoming more aggressive, when China is becoming as more and more interest in the north, I think it was pretty clear to everyone that something needed to be done. And so from everyone I've talked to, these investments are welcome in the territory. Now, how we get to the final product, we're working through that. And the Department of National Defense and the armed forces, they're used to not having money

and not spending money. And so when these big announcements were made, they were trying to figure out, okay, what do we do? How do we do this? And so there was outreach going from different groups, different groups in the military, from the Department of National Defense, to communities, two municipalities, two indigenous governments, to the government of the Northwest Territories. And so we said, okay, we need to coordinate this a little better. And CAF and D&D have been very open to that. I think they've been welcoming of it. So we are now trying to act as sort of a central point of coordination, not to get in the way.

of any sort of government-to-government relationship that they want to have with any indigenous governments, but to help coordinate. And it's been well-received by everyone. So we're working through that process. It feels now that they are working with us. That being said, no RFPs have gone out. No procurement has been awarded. No jobs are, you know, have been created.

So once that starts happening, then we'll be able to tell, okay, is this something where the people of the territory are benefiting and our voices are being heard? or not. How important are these investments just like after with diamond mining starting to wrap up this oil company starting to wrap up? How important is this investment just for people to be able to stay within the region? Well, it's hard to put them in isolation because at the same time, the same day the Prime Minister came up and made those big announcements. He also announced the referral of three major projects in the Northwest Territories to the major projects office. And those are nation-building projects. I won't even say once in a generation projects here in the territory. They're probably once. This might be the only chance we ever get to build these projects and get the backing from

this federal government. And so all of it is happening at one time. We have two major corridors going north to connect the southern part of the territory to the northwest passage essentially, a major hydro project to help with powered some of the mines that are coming online and hopefully future mines. And we have all of this D&D work. So in the coming years, my concern is more we don't have enough people to do the work we need done in the territory now and so there's going to be more work than we're able to handle here. And so I'm concerned about ensuring that work stays in the north.

It's going to be easy to get a big conch, one of Canada's big contractors to come up here and they'll bring in all their people, all their equipment and they can do the work. We don't want that. We want the people of the territory to be doing the work because as like we're talking with the diamond mines are winding down.

Imperial Oil is moving out of Norman Wells. and we need that next generation of work. And so all of that construction work, it's, I won't say it's temporary, but it's creating enabling infrastructure. And so that once we have these additional corridors, these roads, that's going to help spur exploration and development. And then I'm hopeful that we're going to see

new resource development projects coming online in a staggered way. So it's not a bunch of big mines all at once, all closing it once. It's going to be, we'll have a few mines operating as one closes, other ones will open. And hopefully that will bring some, ability to the territory.

Just following up on that and you somewhat alluded to it, Ottawa now describes northern roads, ports, hydroelectricity, critical mines, and defense infrastructure as nation-building priorities. How do you prevent Arctic sovereignty from becoming another southern project done to northerners where resources move out, military infrastructure arrives, and communities remain underserved and underhoused? And that's our push. and we're having that engagement with the appropriate folks every day.

So I have those conversations with the prime minister, with Minister McGinty. At the officials level, they're having that conversation. I met with some of the lieutenant generals, really the second highest ranking military officials there are. And they've told me, you know, proactively, they said, we don't want to make the mistakes of the past. And so in the past, the military might have come up to a community,

set up an installation, and there was just a segregation, where there was no interaction between the military folks and the community, or if there was a maybe it was a negative interaction, and there were no benefits left in the community. And so those days, I think all of us agree, we don't want to see that again. We want to make sure that when there is military going into a community, there's investments in dual-use infrastructure. And that's one where I feel very comfortable that we're going to see a lot of those,

whether that's the medical equipment I was talking about, whether it's municipal infrastructure or things like the McKenzie Valley Highway, those are benefits that are coming along with these investments in defense. Fascinating. How do you manage something like the McKenzie Highway, the Arctic Economic and Security Corridor and its construction? How do you try and make sure that that gets done sooner rather than later? Because it sounds like it'll have a lot of economic benefits, but may come after potentially the next election.

Well, the McKenzie Valley Highway, we're working full out on that because that one is as close to ready as as we can get at this point in time. The other ones are a little further off. Not that much further though. But the McKenzie Valley Highway, it was originally broken out into two phases. So it's about an 800 kilometer stretch.

And right now there is no connection. You can't drive from the southern NWT to the northern NWT unless you leave, you go through BC and then up to the Yukon and then back into the Northwest Territories. But to do that, you got to pass over three mountain ranges. So it's not an easy trek. and it's not open throughout the year. So, I'm sorry, what was the question again?

I forgot that one. I'm just wondering, like, how important is that to get done sooner rather than later? It sounds like it'll have a lot of economic benefits and regional benefits. And absolutely. And so that's the really big push now, is getting this done. And I have never seen the people of the territory come together in this way. It's been amazing. So this is a road that, you know, Prime Minister Diefenbaker talked about 75 years ago.

And it's been in people's imaginations ever. since then. And so the people of the Sautu region, where this would go right through, they've been pushing for this for years. And so when I became premier, I was sent a gift from the Satu Secretariat, and it was a set of glasses in a pitcher, and it said Sautu Secretary

Incorporated in support to the McKenzie Valley Highway. And so when everyone went to the office and I've drinking my water, I see that that. And so this is something that was really from the grassroots, this has been pushed. And people understand how important it is. Because right now we have a number of flying communities.

who don't have a lot of economic opportunities. It's expensive to get in and out and a very high cost of living. And so this road would bring that cost of living down. It would make any sort of business venture, resource development, much more affordable. And it would create jobs. And people in that region, you know, there's been resource development jobs there for a long time. They're well aware of the money that comes along with that. So everyone from the communities to the public government to the,

the boards, the resource boards who are in charge of, you know, doing the environmental assessments, everyone recognizes the importance of this and is working to get it done. And everything we do in the territory, every kind of development, every kind of construction, it always has to be sustainable, it always has to protect the environment because those are values that are very, very in order. There's things in the territory that people want to be able to continue to go out on the land, continue to harvest forever. We're not working towards a situation where the days of going out in the land are over, there's very much that connection to the traditional lifestyle, and that's something that just has to remain. So we're pushing hard, but we're not cutting any

corners. We're still going through the process. But there are things in that process that can be tightened up, and we are tightening up. You know, sometimes a development might take years to move through a process, but it's because papers are sitting on someone's desk, not getting looked at for half of that time. And so by focusing our efforts here, we're really moving these things forward. So my hope is that we're going to see a full construction start next year. The Assembly of First Nations just did their annual general assembly, and they had a lot of concerns about the major projects office and its potential impact in trampling on indigenous rights and title and their interests in having the right to consultation. Do you have those same concerns, or do you

feel like because there's a more tight-knit community, it will be easier to liaise and make sure that your concerns are all shared adequately? Well, you know, Canada's environmental regime and a lot of those permits that you're talking about, they were really born from the Northwest Territories and the Berger inquiry. When there was a pipeline that was going to head north up to the Arctic Ocean, the indigenous group said, hey, wait a minute, you can't just ram this through. And really, that led to a lot of the consultation that has to happen now across the country. And so we're very much aware of that.

We know how to, if we don't want a project to go ahead in the territory, we know how to stop a project from going ahead. And so we have that ability, the people, the communities have that ability. So the major projects office, after that announcement was made that we were being considered for the first project of national significance, they are going out to the communities and doing that consultation up front. So that's the federal piece. And that's a minor piece of the overall environmental regulatory system up here. So we are governed under the McKenzie Valley Resource Management Act, which is actually a federal piece of legislation that governs our lands and resources. And what that does is it incorporates commitments made in modern treaties into the federal legislation.

And so our system, the boards that make these decisions, they have appointees from the indigenous governments, from the government of Canada and from the territorial government. So we have a co-management system. And if communities have concerns, they can participate in the process. They can write in. They can say, no, we need information on this. How are you going to deal with this? What's the impact of this?

And those questions can be answered. So we have a very robust system in place. And so I'm, if I was in a different, if I was in one of the provinces, perhaps there might be more concern. But because of the system we have that's based on modern treaties, we're in a much different situation. Can I just follow up on that? One challenge I have as a First Nations chief myself is that we're often treated as a monolith. And it's becoming too common to say we're not a monolith now. but you do have certain communities that are much more staunch on environmentalism.

And at times, I think that trumps their care for their community member's quality of life. Like if you don't let a pipeline come through your region, if you don't let some of these things come through, the economic benefits that flow from those won't reach your community either. And it's really trying to find that balanced path forward. I know you can't speak for these communities, but do you feel like that's, that understanding of that balance is alive and well within your region from indigenous people? Yeah, I think so. I think there's really a recognition that if you want jobs, you need some development. And if not, then what's, what are you going to do? And if people don't want development,

then we don't have to have development. I'm not going to say, no, we must do this. We have to do this. I'm in favor of self-determination. And, but there needs to be a way to support ourselves in the territory. I don't want to be on, you know, welfare from the government of Canada for all time. And that's what we are right now. You mentioned 80% of our revenues come from the government of Canada. We don't have an ability to generate our own source revenues. We have a lot of social problems, a lot of issues in the territory, a lot of old infrastructure in the territory. And we don't have any, we don't have the fiscal capacity to make the big impact that we need to in that area. So when, you know, we need to replace tens of millions of dollars of power generating infrastructure.

sure. We need really mental health supports across the territory in a much more intensive way than we're able to provide them now. So we need all these things. And we're not going to get these things unless we have some revenue that we're generating within the territory. And so while there are, I think, a lot of people who, or there are some people who might think, well, I don't want to see any development because it's bad and it, you know, destroys caribou habitat or it is bringing the caribou numbers down, you know, that's a legitimate concern. And I'm very live to that. We also need to figure, okay, well, how do we deal with that issue, not destroy the Caribou habitat, not decimate their numbers, but generate revenue.

And I'm confident that there's a way forward. You know, we've had mines in the territory. We've had development in the territory. We know how it works. We have a lot of expertise, a lot of traditional knowledge in the territory. We bring all those things together, and we can move forward in a way that is beneficial to everyone and really strikes that balance. What's your grand strategy, if you don't mind me asking?

Like obviously, as you described, you've got these projects coming forward. Seems like a lot of good opportunities. But you sort of talked about like, okay, but we also, we need a long-term plan here. Like, there's a lot of fruit falling. But what's the plan when the fruit stops falling? Like, how do you maintain that? How do you think about trying to take these opportunities and then utilize them for future generations? So this is stable because that's always the risk, right?

Like when we have Enbridge coming through our region and the concern is, okay, this is a great opportunity. But what skills can we get everybody? So we have them continually working. And so when the pipeline's done or when the work's done, there's other projects they can be working on. What's your vision for the Northwest Territories? So when it comes to our infrastructure projects, they're enabling infrastructure. So they're roads. They're power generating systems and connections.

And so those will enable development in the future. So after the prime minister came up here, talked about the McKenzie Valley Highway and announced its referral to the major projects office. we had Rio Tinto in that region a week later looking at copper deposits. And so there is now interest in the north. And I can tell when I travel around the country, there's interest in developing the north. Before we would go to a conference, you know, we'd try to host an event and I'd get up there to talk. And you just heard people talking in the room and not paying attention.

Totally different now. People are quiet and they're seeing that there's opportunities in the north, that the federal government is making these investments in the north. It's going to make it more attractive to do business up here. And beyond the infrastructure investments, we're also working on our regulatory system in cooperation with the federal government who had been absent before. So these are big changes that are going to help spur development, not just the construction of these assets, but then future development down the road. And like I said, we have a lot of critical minerals. If anyone who uses a cell phone or a computer or drives a car or does anything with advanced technology these days, she has an interest in ensuring that we can have the critical minerals that we need. And we have those in the territory.

So there's, we also have a lot of huge natural gas deposits, conventional natural gas deposits. So we have these things that the world needs. And we know that they can be extracted and they can be done responsibly and that they can provide long-term benefits. So we're talking, you know, many decades in the future generations into the future with these things. Forgive my ignorance. I hear the word critical minerals all the time. I have no idea other than gold and silver. Like I don't know what that.

That means what are critical minerals that go into these phones? And I don't think gold is actually a critical mineral. So what a critical mineral is. That's fair enough. No, and I hear what you're saying. So critical mineral is what people say it is. And so Canada, the government of Canada, has a list. I think it's 35 minerals that they have designated as critical.

You know, the American government has a different list. The Department of National Defense, I think, has a different list. And so everyone has a list of critical minerals. But what they are are the minerals, the things that are going to be needed for advanced manufacturing. or it could be things like zinc, which is used to stop, you know, prevent steel from, from rusting. Or it could be tungsten, which they need for things like icebreakers. In addition to the rare earth elements and some of these other minerals, with names I really, some of my can't pronounce, that go into your cell phone and things like that.

And so it's really the, you know, the building blocks of the modern world are what critical minerals are. How much pressure do you feel like you're under? It seems like you're at a turning point for your region where if you get all of this right, the Northwest territories could thrive for the next hundred years and have opportunities. At the same time, if you and your government get this wrong and you misstep and the procurement process isn't good and the contracts don't work out in a good way, you might have a nice highway, but you risk having the people who live there not benefit from all of these big projects. And that's got to be in your mind as you're trying to work through all of these. And how much pressure do you feel like you're under right now? You know what? I would say that it definitely, there's a lot of pressure.

But there was more pressure when the federal government was not interested in the North. And they weren't talking about making investments up here. That's pressure. When you don't, there is no clear path to prosperity. Now there's a path. It's a matter of getting everyone on board and moving towards that. So it means, you know, getting kids to school so that they can get an education so that they can get the skills they need eventually.

We just need to do the things. Whereas before we had to come up with the things, create the things out of thin air and try and bring them forward. So it's a time of opportunity. So I would say there's a lot of excitement more so than pressure. I'm definitely feeling the need to deliver for the people of the territory as the premier. But it's just such an exciting time. What do you think of Prime Minister Mark Carney? I think that he is like a second MP for the Northwest Territories in a lot of ways.

he has been, you know, we have one MP, Minister Alti, who's a minister of Indigenous Crown Relations, but the Prime Minister, you know, born in the Northwest territories, and he, I can tell, he feels that connection to the North still. When I talk about Fort Smith where he was born, he kind of lights up a little bit. And I know he's, even before he was Prime Minister,

he was pushing Northern development. He was pushing corridors to the Arctic and deep sea ports in the Arctic. And so that support has really been game-changing for us. without that, we would not be having this conversation right now. And so I'm, and I also appreciate his,

his sort of pragmatic approach. You can't really sort of pin him down to, I know he's a liberal, but you can't pin him down to a certain party, which I, which I like, that's kind of what we're like here in the territory. On some things,

maybe we need to be more conservative because that's what the moment calls for. Other things, we need to be more liberal, more, whatever the case is compassionate about something. And because that's what the moment calls for. And so I see him in,

much the same way where it's not so much, okay, here's my ideology. Now, how do I fit these issues into that ideology? It's, okay, what are the issues? And what's a practical way to deal with these issues, given, you know, our resources and what's going on in the world? And so I really appreciate that approach. It really, I think, mirrors how we operate here in the territory. What is that Arctic sovereignty going to look like, tangibly speaking? Is there going to be more bases? How do you actually enact some of these pieces? Yeah. And I, you know, when we talk about Arctic sovereignty, which, that's the term that that everyone uses.

It's really, it's North American security. I think a lot of times people talk about. It's the defense of the continent, the defense of Canada. And so what that's going to look like on the ground is a greater ability for Canada to respond to threats that may occur in the Arctic. So up in Anuvik, which is a northern operational support hub is the term for it. In north of the Arctic Circle, it's also a NORAD forward operating location. What we're going to see there is the McKenzie Valley Highway is going to make access to

that region much easier for the armed forces. There's going to be more infrastructure there to allow military aircraft to land, to take off, to station there. And so if there's a threat in the Arctic, right now, we do have an ability to go and deal with it. But in the future, we're going to have a much greater ability to deal with it, much more, much better eyes on the ground and much more capable to respond to threats. So that's what it's going to look like, I think, on the ground. You know, in terms of the presence, the how many soldiers we're going to see on the ground, I'm not quite I don't think they're going to have a full military base up there with thousands of people, but just a greater presence is my expectation.

And in terms of when you talk about sovereignty, the way I see sovereignty is, if another country is looking at a region, would they say, oh, yeah, obviously that's Canada. That's clearly Canada. You know, if you look at the Georgia Strait between Vancouver Island and the mainland there, no one's questioning whether or not that's Canadian waters. No one's saying that's international waters. But we do have people who say the Northwest Passage are, international waters. And if you look at that region, you know, can you blame them? Because

we have some communities there, but there are small communities and they lack basic infrastructure. And so by having communities that are thriving in a region, I think that's a clear indicator that, okay, that is Canada. That's a sovereign part of the country that Canada is making investments in and, you know, we can't just go in there and plant a flag and claim it as our own. forgive my ignorance, but how real are these threats from Russia and China wanting to interact? Like I apologize, I just don't know how, are there ships trying to go through there? Is this a real threat that we need to be concerned about? What is this looking like actually in your communities?

So in terms of the ships, you know, I get briefings from the federal government security briefings from time to time. and there's nothing of concern in that way happening. That being said, it's not always a ship traveling through our boots on the ground. There's other ways that things can, you know, processes couldn't be influenced. I think that places like China who really have a monopoly on a lot of the mineral or critical minerals, rare earth elements would like to see our critical mineral stay in the ground. And so there was a purchase of part of a company that's doing work in that, space here in the Northwest Territories.

There was attempts by Chinese companies to purchase property around the airport in Anuvik. And so there's little things like that happening, but we're not worried about a ground invasion in the Northwest territories. There's an old saying that if the Russians ever landed on the North Coast, we'd have to send a search and rescue mission. It's not the kind of place where, you know,

they're going to come and seize a bunch of things and easily traverse down to southern Canada. The issue is what comes over the Arctic. And so if there's ballistic missiles, if there's anything like that, it's going to come over the Arctic. And so having eyes on the ground, the ability to detect those and the ability to respond to any threats at our borders is really the focus of, I think, what the military is trying to do, not so much attacks on the Northwest territories. But with great respect, Premier, I guess I just don't understand Mark Carney's doing deals with China. Like, I don't, I just don't understand his, like, he's going to China. he's trying to make agreements inform them

and then he's worried about their ballistic missiles flying over like I just I guess I'm having trouble understanding that and I mean I can't speak for the prime minister but I think Russia might be more of the concern than than China in that sense but yeah I mean it would be great if we just had a you know a trade relationship with our you know our closest neighbor and you know at one point strongest ally

but the world's changing and so I always think about governments the government's the government and that might be 5% of the population who actually likes that government supports that government. The rest of the people are just people trying to make it through the day. Right? And so when we have trade relationships with places like China, that's where that's where my mind goes. But we can't do those things with our eyes closed. We can't have a full, you know, free trade agreement with China the way we have previously

had with the United States. And so I'm not going to critique what the prime minister is doing. I do appreciate that he's, he's playing the long game. You know, we most of the vast majority of our exports go to the United States. We cannot remain in that situation. And we can't flip a switch and change that today either. That's going to take many years, decades to balance, but we've got to start somewhere. And so by trying to build these bridges and make these connections, that's what it looks like to me that the prime minister is trying to do.

A few more questions, and thank you so much for sharing your time. Wildlife officers searched the Timber Bay Cultural Camp in 2022 while investigating an alleged illegal caribou harvest. And the Dene First Nation described the operation as aggressive and trauma. and the warrant was later thrown out. You apologized in April 2026, more than three years later, while the internal review remained incomplete. Why did accountability take so long? Well, there's this is a pretty nuanced discussion and topic, and I've been trying to get

into that community for, since I was elected essentially as Premier, to go and talk to people and have some sort of an apology in the community. Conversations with leadership didn't pan out and we weren't able to get in there, despite many attempts and, you know, book tickets and things like that. And so finally an opportunity came. And so, well, we put something out, you know, in the media just because there was a lot of talk about this. And so I wanted to get something out there to sort of counter the narrative. But an opportunity has risen and I will be going into that community in about a month for one of the annual general assemblies.

And I'll be able to really talk to the people in the community at that point. Fascinating. when your term ends, what result would force you to say publicly that you failed, even if you get reelected? Oh, I mean, if the McKenzie Valley Highway falls apart and doesn't get built, I mean, that would be, you know, a massive failure. This is something that generations of people in the territory have wanted to see and is now within our grasp. And so that would be that would be the thing where, you know, I would really hang my head in shame if that fell apart. But I feel like we're in a good place with that. tremendous premier it's been an honor to speak with you i'm wondering if you can just close by

sharing your kind of hope for canada where you think things are heading and how the northwest territories will contribute to that i'm very hopeful for canada i think a lot of people are really seeing a different future than we've seen before you know we are a resource based economy here in canada um we have a lot else to offer but we have not been taking advantage of that natural advantage that we have. And so I know we can do that responsibly. Now we're moving towards doing that type of work, whether it's building transportation corridors to get to resources

or it's making investments in large-scale LNG distribution plants, whatever the case is. Those are really foundational to our economy. And we're now in a place where all of us, or many people recognize that and are moving towards doing that. That helps enable all of the other things that Canada can do. You know, the advances in, I don't know, medicine, contributions to the COVID vaccine,

contributions and things like aerospace. I mean, we are, I think, what I always hear, the most educated population in the country. And so we have such great natural resources that we can use. And then we have great universities and a lot of very smart people in the country who can then contribute in other ways

in advanced technology, in technology, and all these different elements. So I think that we're finally starting to utilize all of our advantages in Canada. And, you know, the few, we're really, we're unstoppable if we do that. And even things like the, you know, the trade war with the United States. We were a prosperous country. One of the most prosperous countries ever before we had free trade with the United States.

For prosperous during free trade, we'll be prosperous if there's no free trade. It really, this, I always credit the president with, you know, giving us the kick in the butt that we needed as a country and really bringing people together. And I feel that momentum. and I feel that unity. And even when I'm meeting with all of the other premiers as part of the Council of the Federation, everyone has different opinions, different ideas,

how things should happen. But there's such strong unity. And that's really helping, I think, propel us forward and really reflective of the feeling in the country. So I'm very excited. I'm very proud to be Canadian right now. How can people follow your work? I mean, the government in Northos Territories,

we're going to launch a brand new website that's going to have all of our stuff on there. Social media as well. I'm on Instagram and Facebook, although personally I don't have those, but I mean, I do have a corporate account for those. And so people are more than welcome to follow along. We have a great team who tries to show all the different work that we're doing and all the different places we go and interactions we have. Tremendous. Premier, I'll be honest, this, preparing for this interview was really humbling because as a Canadian, you often think like, yeah, I kind of get my country

and trying to make sure that I grounded my understanding in your local politics. in your local region and just trying to prepare was very like, wow, I really don't know my country as well as I'd like to. And even you sharing your reflections of like traveling through your own territory and learning all these different areas and spaces. It's just, it's a refreshing because I love small towns. Like I think they're the bedrock of Canada. And we overlook them at our detriment. Corner Gas is one of my favorite shows of all time because it really speaks to that idea that we're all just one small town down the road, way more connected than we've realized just trying to do our best. And I think you've reiterated that throughout our conversation.

And it was just very refreshing. So thank you so much for joining us. No, thank you. I really appreciate the time. One of the biggest jobs of a territorial politician is educating the rest of Canada about the North. You're not the only one who isn't an expert, I guess, on the North. Maybe you are now. And so I'm always happy to have these chats. Yeah, I look forward to more because I imagine I have much to learn. And I'd love to keep up on all the work taking place and these investments going into your region. So thank you again. Thank you.