Yellowknife election 2026: Yanik D’Aigle interview

Yanik D’Aigle, the NWT’s public trustee and owner of Mavinjus Games and Collectables, says he will focus on financial responsibility and removing barriers to development if elected to council.

“We continue to see high costs of living, high cost of doing business, high cost of operating a government,” said D’Aigle.

“For me, it’s looking at peeling the layers of the onion and trying to really get down to the nitty gritty to be accountable.”

D’Aigle said he came to Yellowknife almost 15 years ago for a job in the financial and banking industry. In his current role as the public trustee, he is responsible for the estates of people who have handed over power of attorney or the deceased who have no one able or willing to act as an administrator.

He was the Conservative Party’s NWT candidate for the 2019 federal election.

D’Aigle said he wants to look at why development is still facing challenges in the city. His solutions include a single-window application process in partnership with the GNWT, with the goal of the city eventually owning the “end-to-end process of actually building homes.”

To address public safety concerns, he would like to create a community patrol that would partner community members with municipal enforcement officers or RCMP around the city.

Cabin Radio is aiming to interview all 21 candidates running for eight council seats. We have asked every candidate to list their four top priorities to guide those interviews.

Melissa Syer and Garett Cochrane are running for mayor. Cabin Radio hosted a mayoral candidates’ debate on October 5 from 7-8:30pm at City Hall, which was broadcasted live on our Facebook page, website and app.

Election day is October 19. Early voting begins on October 5 and runs until October 16.

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This interview was recorded on October 4, 2026. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Ollie Williams: In 2019, you ran to be the MP of the Northwest Territories. You now hold a pretty significant public office. You’re a small business owner in town as well. Why do you want to be a city councillor?

Yanik D’Aigle: For me, it really is always about giving back. As I continue to volunteer and try to give back, this is for me another opportunity to be able to give back to the community.

Service above self has always been a huge, huge thing for me and council really is about setting vision, setting things in place for the greater good of the city. They’re at the forefront of what really happens to the road in front of you, to the boundaries of the city, and even really beyond. We’re the capital city for the Northwest Territories, so its impact and influence really is even more than its own borders.

The city is limited in what it can do to make affordable housing. It can certainly try to make more land available. It can’t really develop its own. It doesn’t have much of a say in what other developers do. It can lobby the territorial government. What do you believe the city could do that it isn’t already doing?

One of the things I’m trying to advocate for is for the City of Yellowknife to own the end-to-end process of actually building homes.

If you look at it right now: I need to start an application at the city, then it goes back and forth between the city and the GNWT at various stages of approval and review. Having a single-window application process to make things simpler, faster, better – tracked at the city level, where we look for efficiency so we don’t have 20 different forms and 20 different inspections – will save time and money.

Can the city simply legislate the territory out of that process, or does the territory need to change something there?

It has to do with partnerships. Right now the legislation does not allow that, but we can start as easily as colocation. There’s a lot of movement happening already with the new Department of Economic Development happening within the city. Can we not look at perhaps reaching out to the GNWT? And let’s even put them in the same building so there’s that ease of communication. Maybe develop a communication tool. We can then have things shared electronically between the various departments, so we can track it at single source and know where everything is at and the timeframes to be able to do that.

The second part is the city in the past has caused some red tape. When we think back a few years ago, the 50/50 lot had a really great opportunity to develop 180 units with [Holloway Lodging], the owners of part of the mall downtown. When you look at why the deal fell through, one of the key things was some of the barriers of the risk, the reward, the opportunity to be able to build the housing, and then at the same time having a core requirement of affordable housing being within that building structure.

When we look at trying to build affordable housing at spec, at the beginning of when we’re trying to build something new, that can limit the opportunity, especially if we don’t have grants specifically coming from the federal government. We want to incentivize private-sector development and one of the key things to do that is to increase the actual available number of homes. By having new homes, we also have people move into those new homes, which then makes existing homes available for purchase as well.

It creates that pool of availability that, on the medium to longterm, lowers costs for renting, lowers cost for purchasing, and lowers cost to be able to get somebody into a home.

Note: Council passed a bylaw at its last meeting to create a Major Projects and Opportunities Secretariat. The city already had an economic opportunities, investments and partnerships department, though that name is quite new (it was previously the city’s economic development division).

You alluded to the city’s renewed focus on economic development, the creation of a municipal major projects office. Economic growth is one of the priorities that you’ve set out. Do you like the approach the city is taking? What else would you like to see the city doing on that front?

I do like it to a certain extent. I’m happy that the money being utilized for the department is specifically tied to federal dollars coming in. The intent is to not be a burden on the taxpayer. That is one of the key things we need to be mindful of, how we spend the money, because there’s direct purpose for that new project.

There’s also, at least for the time being, a finite window. This is an entity that, at least on paper initially, is meant to last for the next five years. We can then also have measurements as to what was the success of that department and the challenge or the opportunities that still lie at the end of that.

As for current economic development, I always believe the city can do more but at the same time, it’s also limited. When we think of all the development organizations out there, there is a lot of support to develop a business. The question becomes: if we have all of these development agencies, why are there still so many challenges? Why is it so hard to start up a business within Yellowknife and the NWT?

It has to do with risk versus reward. How do we minimize that? How do we lower the risk? How do we encourage people to take the risk of starting up a new business? Part of that for me is to incentivize either one, two or three-year permits that are at a significantlu lower cost to be able to enter into business.

I want more mom-and-pops out of their home to be able to develop a business and start something, test out the water, see if it’s successful. Because as they grow confidence, as they grow and see the success, it’s a lot easier for them to go from their home or from a small office to then create a retail footprint and minimize the risk.

You have community safety as a priority. The city, I think, would say it is trying to support community safety as best it can through its municipal enforcement division, at the same time as ensuring vulnerable people in the community get as much access as possible to the help they need, and a lot of that is not the city’s responsibility. That lies with other levels of government. How would you see the approach that the city has to community safety evolve?

I think we have to go with low-hanging fruit, and again, I would agree with you that we have to be within the scope of what the city can actually impact and influence. This has to do with partnerships. We can go to basics of improved lighting, improved MED.

But do we not have an entire responsibility as a community, if we’re all looking to make the downtown and other parts of the community more safe, more clean, to be utilized by everybody? I think of things like community patrol, community walkabouts to make sure we are not only from a health and safety standpoint trying to help out the people that might be homeless or need a roof over their head, but just outreach and helping out a human being and how we might just ask: “Do you have everything you need? Can we set you up with an agency or an organization that might be able to help you out today?”

Who is on this community patrol and what powers do they have?

I’ve seen the RCMP in the past and some other communities have community policing where they also help out, and it helps diversify the manpower. We can also have community members partner up with MED to do community walkabouts – to understand what they can and can’t do, to utilize the tools at their disposal, but then also be informed of the agencies that can help out, so we can reach out to some of these agencies to come and assist somebody who might be challenged.

Environmental stewardship. What does that look like in terms of change to municipal policy?

I think it just goes with how we do business as a city government. How do we get our infrastructure in a certain way that we can still benefit everybody? And it will never be all-encompassing. We have to remember that at the end of the day some people choose to bike 365 days of the year, but the significant portion of those persons might only do so for six to eight months depending on the weather.

What we do want to do is enable those types of things to be able to happen. Somebody coming into the office downtown who’s doing it by bike versus a car saves a parking space. So putting in more bike racks so that people can utilize their bicycles and have a safe place to be able to put them for secure storage, have more walking paths to be able to enjoy our nature.

How often do you watch council meetings?

If you had asked me four years ago how often I watched it, I’d probably say about once or twice per year. Since 2026, I have watched every one of them since January. What I’m trying to improve on is watching the committee meetings as well.

What’s one thing you wish residents knew about those meetings?

One of the things I think is important is the amount of proposals that actually come to be presented to city council. There’s a lot of great ideas presented, and the question is which ones are executed, which ones are not, and the reason why. I want the city to show: Which ones are we approving? Which ones are we not approving? And providing the reasons why, so we can be transparent.

If I was going to give you 30 seconds to explain to Yellowknife voters what it is that should set you apart when they look at that ballot on October 19, what is it?

If you want a voice on council for fiscal responsibility, an advocate for vulnerable residents of all ages who’s also going to ensure every dollar spent for the city has maximum benefit and value, this is why you want to support me.

I want to make sure families of today and tomorrow continue to see the great opportunities that Yellowknife can provide. But for that to happen, we need to do the investments. We need to do the work today to make sure those opportunities for our residents, for our businesses, for our tourists that come in and visit, to see the greatness that we all see – today and tomorrow.