What can Yellowknife’s next leaders learn from the ones who are leaving?

As Yellowknifers get ready to elect a new mayor and set of eight councillors, what legacy does the current council leave behind and what can candidates learn from it?

Sitting councillors Rob Warburton, Rob Foote, Ryan Fequet and Steve Payne are running for re-election alongside 17 new council candidates. Councillor Garett Cochrane is running to be Yellowknife’s next mayor against Melissa Syer.

Mayor Ben Hendriksen and councillors Cat McGurk and Tom McLennan, who are each stepping down, shared their perspectives on the work they accomplished at City Hall, challenges they faced, and their advice to future council. (Stacie Arden Smith, also stepping down, declined Cabin Radio’s request for an interview.)

The city’s outgoing council faced plenty of challenges during its four-year term, from a heavy snow dump in 2022 to a strike and labour lockout, hosting evacuees from other communities and a citywide evacuation in 2023.

Yellowknife hired two new managers in 2024 after the first unexpectedly resigned after two weeks in the role to take a job in Thunder Bay. Council also dealt with high inflation throughout its term.

“It was an initiation by fire,” Hendriksen said. “It brought us together very closely, very quickly as a team.”

McGurk said having many new people on council – only three were incumbents – meant adjusting to roles while facing unprecedented issues.

“We had to rely on staff and [I’m] grateful for that because there’s a lot of institutional knowledge there that helped us through, but I think it also strengthened our ability to do governance,” they said.

What went right?

Among council’s biggest accomplishments, Hendriksen listed bouncing back from the evacuation and releasing a third-party review of the city’s handling of the emergency. (Rebecca Alty, who was mayor at the time, left municipal politics in 2025 to become the NWT’s MP.)

He also highlighted “nuts and bolts” investments in water and sewer infrastructure, work with the federal government to prepare for defence and infrastructure spending, and the passage of a transportation plan.

Hendriksen said he will personally “forever be super proud” to have worked with the Yellowknives Dene First Nation to rename the city’s main street to Wıìlıìdeh Avenue.

McLennan pointed to council’s work to pass a vacant land tax as well as advance a new community plan and the transfer of territorial land near Frame Lake to the city.

“That amount of land to have on the table is massive and that was just not something I think was perceived as realistic at the beginning of our term,” he said. “All of the advocacy is starting to pay off.”

McLennan further highlighted expansion of Yellowknife’s street outreach program, reducing public transit fares, and the city’s wildfire preparation efforts following the review of the 2023 season.

McGurk said an overall success was maintaining and building a good relationship with city administration and having respectful discourse between councillors.

“We worked really hard to listen to the needs of staff and allow them to do what they needed to do to make their departments more effective and do their work,” they said.

Other accomplishments McGurk noted included building more effective systems, improving access for all, and beginning work to replace a lift station in Old Town.

What was left on the table?

McGurk said council accomplished many important things but some could have been advanced further.

For example, the city updated the design of its website but McGurk felt more could have been done to improve communication and public engagement.

“Municipal government is definitely a very fast-moving government body compared to a lot of other government bodies, but it’s still a long process and it can be difficult to get everything through that you want to get through,” they said.

Hendriksen was happy council passed a transportation plan, but would have liked to have seen some of its actions advanced during his time on council.

He added that while the city “doesn’t have as many levers” as other levels of government, he wishes the municipality could have done more to address the need for housing.

McLennan said he wanted local improvement charges to fund energy retrofits for homes, but other councillors felt that was too much for the city to take on.

He, too, wanted council to “move the needle a bit further” on housing.

What should be next?

McLennan wants the next council to strike a balance between supporting federal investment in infrastructure while considering the future operational costs that come with it.

That could mean “being prepared and ready to say no, if needed, to some free federal money,” he said.

He wants the city to get away from high-level planning documents and focus on process and implementation.

McGurk hopes councillors work together, have respectful discussions and engage with the public.

“I would really like to see a council that is thinking about the future impacts of their decisions,” they said, adding that every choice – even a simple one – is going to impact the community.

“I hope that they take that responsibility very seriously.”

Hendriksen wants to see pragmatic leadership.

Pointing to federal attention on the North, he said the city needs to work with other levels of the government and “do the best it can for Yellowknifers with the resources that are available.”

Hendriksen’s advice to a future mayor and council is to hold themselves accountable and keep their focus on issues that matter to them.

McGurk encouraged future councillors to “be open to hard decisions.”

“They should be making decisions not on the grounds of wanting to be re-elected but on the grounds of what is best for the community,” they said.

McGurk added council decisions are impacted by what’s happening elsewhere in the world and it’s increasingly difficult for municipalities with limited options to serve residents without increasing taxes.

“There are forces outside of us that are impacting that, and it’s hard to say what our responsibility is as a municipality to address that,” they said.

“Acknowledging it, I think, is very important, because if we don’t, then it’s hard for residents to understand why we are asking them to pay more money and not get upset with us.”