The Liberal Party in the Northwest Territories says it is not concerned by the Conservatives and NDP announcing candidates well ahead of the next federal election.
The Conservatives selected Kimberly Fairman to be their next NWT candidate in July.
Kelvin Kotchilea has been the New Democrats’ chosen candidate since April 2023.
The NWT’s Liberals, by contrast, have not yet selected a candidate to run in the next election, which must be held on or before October 20, 2025. Michael McLeod, the current Liberal MP for the territory, has said he will step down when that election is called.
The prospect of an early election appeared to increase this week after deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland’s resignation. Other major parties – and some Liberal MPs – have urged Justin Trudeau to quit as prime minister and Liberal leader, though so far there’s no sign he will leave in the immediate future. Trudeau is instead expected to shuffle his cabinet on Friday.
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“We’ll be ready if an election is called early, and we do have prospective candidates lined up,” NWT Liberals chair David Monroe said by email this week.
“If there is an election before the fall of 2025, the association will hold a quick meeting among supporters and start the campaign. Otherwise, in the event that parliament somehow continues to function until the end of the term, we will have a nomination meeting at the beginning of the summer/late spring.”
One former MLA called the Liberals’ decision not to join the Conservatives and NDP in naming an NWT candidate well before the election an “odd strategy.”
Monroe, though, said the party had “a lot of groundwork laid already.”
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Without naming any of the prospective candidates that the party says it has lined up, Monroe said the Liberals are “fairly confident that our candidate will have the name recognition to alleviate the need to go early that you would need if you were relatively unknown to the majority of voters.”
“Most engagement with voters also comes during the election, and that’s when voters will tune in to the people running,” he said, pointing out that McLeod himself was nominated comparatively late in the day in 2015 – his first federal election – but went on to win as part of a broader Liberal landslide.
The Green Party has also yet to determine who its next NWT candidate will be. It’s not yet clear if other parties will run candidates or if any independents will stand.
