Northwest Territories

The Northwest Territories riding is the sole federal seat for a landmass of roughly 1.35 million square kilometres stretching from the 60th parallel to the Beaufort Sea coast, encompassing boreal forest, the Mackenzie River valley, tundra barrens, and Arctic coastline. Its approximately 45,000 residents are distributed across 33 communities, with nearly half living in the capital, Yellowknife, and the remainder in centres such as Hay River, Inuvik, Behchokǫ̀, Fort Smith, and Fort Simpson. More than half the territorial population is Indigenous, including Dene, Métis, and Inuvialuit peoples whose land-claim organizations and self-governing bodies—from the Tl̩ıchǫ Government to the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation—play a central role in governance and resource management.

Candidates

Rebecca Alty (Liberal) — Born and raised in Yellowknife, Alty was elected to city council in 2012, re-elected in 2015, and became mayor in 2018 before being acclaimed for a second mayoral term in 2022. She studied communications at the University of Calgary and has worked in community relations at the Diavik diamond mine, in the non-profit sector, and with the NWT government. She served as president of the Northwest Territories Association of Communities and on the board of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, giving her direct experience in lobbying on northern priorities including housing, infrastructure, and municipal funding formulas.

Kimberly Fairman (Conservative) — An Inuk woman raised in Yellowknife, Fairman holds a graduate degree from the University of Alberta and has been pursuing doctoral studies in the social dimensions of health at the University of Victoria. She served as executive director of the Institute for Circumpolar Health Research and has worked with the federal agencies CanNor and Crown–Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, as well as holding the role of director of mental health and addictions at the NWT Department of Health and Social Services. She won the Conservative nomination over former territorial MLA Jackie Jacobson and campaigned on community safety, housing affordability, and healthcare.

Kelvin Kotchilea (NDP) — A Tl̩ıchǫ citizen from Behchokǫ̀, Kotchilea spent fourteen years with the Government of the Northwest Territories, primarily with the Department of Environment and Climate Change, and has also served as a renewable-resource officer. This was his second federal campaign, having also run as the NDP’s NWT candidate in 2021. His platform emphasized securing federal funding for the Mackenzie Valley Highway, expanding clean-energy infrastructure, building affordable housing, and asserting Canadian Arctic sovereignty.

Rainbow Eyes (Green Party) — Also known as Angela Davidson, Rainbow Eyes is a member of the Da’naxda’xw/Awaetlala First Nation of Knight Inlet, British Columbia, and has served as deputy leader of the Green Party of Canada. She brought experience in First Nations governance and land stewardship from her home territory and campaigned on environmental protection and Indigenous rights in the North.

About the Riding

The Northwest Territories is in the midst of a profound economic transition. For three decades, diamond mining drove territorial growth, but the sector is contracting sharply. Rio Tinto’s Diavik mine ceased commercial production in early 2025 after exhausting its ore body, beginning a multi-year closure and remediation process that will shrink its workforce from roughly 900 to a few hundred. The Ekati mine, now owned by Burgundy Diamond Mines, reported a nearly $95-million loss in 2024 and has faced layoffs and operational uncertainty. Gahcho Kué, the remaining active diamond mine, is projected to operate only until approximately 2031. The NWT government has projected a real GDP contraction of nearly five per cent in 2025, the third consecutive annual decline.

Territorial and federal leaders are looking to critical minerals—lithium, cobalt, zinc, and rare earths—as the next economic pillar, noting that the NWT contains deposits of roughly three-quarters of the minerals on Canada’s critical-minerals list. Infrastructure to access those deposits remains a bottleneck. The proposed Slave Geological Province Corridor, an all-season road into the mineral-rich region northeast of Yellowknife, would replace an ice road whose operating season is shrinking with each warming winter. The long-planned Mackenzie Valley Highway, intended to connect the southern NWT to the Beaufort Delta with an all-season road, remains a priority for communities along the route.

The 2023 wildfire season was the worst on record in the territory. Fires burned more than 3.2 million hectares and forced the evacuation of Yellowknife, Hay River, and other communities—displacing tens of thousands of residents for weeks and exposing gaps in emergency-preparedness planning, particularly for vulnerable populations. Recovery and rebuilding from the fires remained a live concern heading into the 2025 election. In March 2025, the federal government designated Yellowknife and Inuvik as two of three Northern Operational Support Hub locations, part of a $2.67-billion, twenty-year Arctic defence investment that carries implications for local employment, infrastructure development, and the territory’s evolving relationship with federal military planning.