Politics in NWT - Fascinating. Substantive. Respectful. Inspirational.Amazing!

Today I sat in on a third day of the current session of the Territorial Legislature (last week I had some extra time, today it was pure interest). It's a wonderful way to get acquainted with my new home - a crash course in current issues facing "The North" generally, and the North West Territories specifically. The rising Liard River forcing evacuations. The state of Hwy #7 (gravel and permafrost heaves, I gather). Patient transportation in remoter communities (most NWT communities) - ATVs and pickups. The cost overruns and construction delays on the Deh Cho bridge, which will replace the MacKenzie River ferry before most of you get around to driving up here. The water purification needs of Enterprise (home of "Winnie's" and her famous buttertarts) - currently Enterprise buys water from Hay River. The cost of gas, i.e. transportation - $1.88 in Inuvik. Local food initiatives (http://www.farmnwt.com/: who "south" knows that there is a Territorial Farmers Association? that "food sustainability" and "local food" are debated issues? that there is arable land in NWT? that  residents in Yellowknife want bylaws changed to allow for raising "urban chickens"?).

The NWT political system - the consensus model - ought to be adopted by the rest of Canada. There are 19 MLAs, each elected on their own individual merits (imagine if that applied federally!). These 19, by secret ballot, choose a Speaker, a Premier, and six Ministers, in that order. The remainder of the MLAs form "the opposition" - so the Opposition is always bigger than the Government. The Government proposes legislation, the Opposition critiques, raises issues, seeks to get Ministers to devise remedies. Debate goes through the Speaker and is - based on my three days of observation - always substantive and always respectful.

Today was extra special: much of the debate in the Legislature centred around the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a federal commission charged with documenting the awful legacy of the residential schools. A good third of NWT MLAs, including the Premier, are "Residential School Survivors" - and all who ever attended residential schools are called, and call themselves, survivors. The legacy goes beyond the possibly somewhat more widely known stories of physical and sexual abuse: the cascading effect of separating parents and children generation after generation, of institutionalizing the development of children who would of course grow up to be future parents, has had an unimaginably devastating effect. How does one learn how to parent when one is not parented oneself? I imagined myself, I imagined Willem, taken away at six years old, to a harsh and forbidding environment that understood its mandate as erasing who each of us were. I shuddered.

At the mid-afternoon ceremony officially thanking the members of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for their work, and honoring the survivors "who have shared their suffering with great dignity in order to promote healing and reconciliation," MC Norman Yakeleya (MLA Sahtu) introduced himself as a school survivor, "#153." This prompted Premier McLeod to mention the two schools he had attended, where he was #15 and #44 respectively; but at 14 he had also met his wife there, and they are still married (appreciative laughter from the crowd). There is actually a lot of humor - humor, said Yakeleya, got us through.

There are so many wonderful things to learn, here.