Yellowknife - Law and Government

Law and Government

Yellowknife has a municipal government system and is governed by the Yellowknife City Council, which consists of an elected Mayor and eight Councillors. The Government of the Northwest Territories delegates powers to the municipality through legislative acts and regulations. Council meetings are held in the Council Chambers at City Hall on the second and fourth Monday of each month, and are open to the public. Municipal elections are held every three years. The current mayor of Yellowknife is Gordon Van Tighem.

Yellowknife is represented in the territorial government by seven of the 19 Members of the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories (MLAs). These MLAs are elected every four years and sit in the Northwest Territories Legislative Building, located in Yellowknife. The MLAs elect the Speaker of the House as well as six Cabinet Ministers and the Premier, which forms the Cabinet. In addition, a Commissioner is appointed by the Federal Government to fulfill a similar role to that of the Lieutenant Governor. The Northwest Territories is one of only two federal, provincial or territorial jurisdictions in Canada that operate under a consensus system of government.

The Northwest Territories is in the federal electoral riding of the Western Arctic and has one Member of Parliament and one Senator, currently Dennis Bevington and Nick Sibbeston, respectively. Yellowknife is home to seven of the 19 electoral districts in the Northwest Territories, the Frame Lake, Great Slave, Kam Lake, Range Lake, Weledeh, Yellowknife Centre and Yellowknife South ridings.