Yellowknife election 2026: Tammy Soanes-White interview

Tammy Soanes-White says she has always wanted to serve on Yellowknife City Council and is now able to pursue that goal in this month’s municipal election.

Soanes-White moved to Yellowknife with her husband and four children in 1994 and has spent more than three decades building a life in the city.

She works as a business instructor at Aurora College and has a bachelor of commerce degree, an MBA, several degrees in educational policy studies and a doctorate in education.

She says she wants to bring her financial and educational background to council while giving back to the community.

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 at City Hall. You can watch the debate on Cabin Radio’s Facebook page or listen to it on Spotify.

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

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This interview was recorded on October 5, 2026. The transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

Eshana Gohil: Why do you want to serve on Yellowknife City Council?

Tammy Soanes-White: I’ve wanted to do this for so many years and it wasn’t possible for me earlier. Now things have worked out so that I’m able to actually participate. I’m very excited to be part of a role that I’ve always wanted to be in and to serve the community in a different way. 

What does responsible spending look like to you at the municipal level, and where do you think the city has the biggest opportunity to make sure its resources are being used effectively?

Good question. I teach economics, and the fiscal responsibility of a municipality is to generate revenue primarily from municipal taxes. The first thing is to go over the budget and make sure there isn’t any excess spending. Another really important thing is to check in with the community and find out what the trends and opportunities are that are coming up.

People always say, ‘If we collect more taxes, we can get more services.’ That’s not always necessarily true, depending on the service levels and the needs of the city for the financing. I think responsible spending means spending the money in a way that is going to meet the needs of the community, as well as respecting the structure we already have. 

Are there areas where you think the city should be investing more, or areas where you think it could be doing things differently?

Housing is a huge issue here. I think we need to change some of our policies and bylaws to reflect an easier way of creating more housing, more accessible, and to speed up the process because time is money, and a lot of organizations building homes here are facing really high rates.

Part of that has to do with our policies and procedures, and the steps people have to go through to build homes. I think that’s a really important piece. 

Are there particular barriers that you think the city could prioritize addressing?

One of the ones that comes up to me the fastest and the most is streamlining the process for building and building permitting through the city. I think that could be streamlined a lot better. 

I think even small changes to our bylaws and our development bylaws would go a long way to helping to improve the housing issues in Yellowknife. 

How do you think the city can make recreation and sport more affordable and accessible for Yellowknife residents?

Thank you for asking this one. This is so important to me. There’s an access for all policy but, unfortunately, it only applies to drop-in. A lot of our youth and young adults don’t have the same access. 

What I’d like to see is an income threshold where we allow people to participate in sports for subsidized rates, so more kids and more youth are able to access not just drop-in but can be actively involved in recreation programs in town. 

You’ve identified edible landscaping as a priority. Could you describe that in more detail? What do you see as the benefits for Yellowknife?

The city has a budget and plants plants every year, and we have a lot of very beautiful spaces, and they are typically flowers. There are also trees planted annually. What I would like to see is some of those funds taken and used to produce or reproduce edible landscaping, which would be any plants we could consume. 

I’d like to see them across all the trail systems in Yellowknife: raspberry bushes, rhubarb, cranberry bushes and blueberry bushes. Part of it is philosophical for me. I think food should be free – and of course it’s not, because we’re in a wage-based economy. But if we had a way of creating pockets of food, and it would make the community beautiful, it would be perpetual, perennial, sustainable, and it would be taking the money we currently have and investing it in another form of landscaping that we’re already doing. 

Within an entire council, how would you advocate for these things?

I think a really strong council is going to come out of this election. There’s so many people who put their names forward, and I get the feeling we’re going to have people who are going to be open to listening to some of these options. 

I think some of them, like edible landscaping, might be easier to sell because it’s already in an existing budget. Other things like making changes to development bylaws and things like that, it might take more than four years. It might take one term, two terms, three terms.

But I think working together, everyone on council, if they’re bringing their best foot forward – and I think most people will be – I think we can work to achieve some or all of our goals. 

You have mentioned finding alternative sources of revenue through community sponsorships and partnerships. What opportunities do you think the city is currently missing, and how could council pursue them?

I think there’s a lot of room for corporate sponsorship. We have a lot of very large corporations, and we also have Indigenous organizations that are willing to participate in the governance structure.

I think we need to build relationships. I think we need to be better at that, and I think corporate sponsorships are ways of marketing some of our infrastructure, our facilities, allowing corporations to sponsor and be recognized in those facilities through naming opportunities or even through different partnerships for capital development.

I would like to see us be able to deepen some of those relationships to be able to increase other forms of funding other than municipal taxes.

Note: The city has recently signed naming rights agreements for some facilities, such as its aquatic centre.

What is your familiarity with council? Have you been to a council meeting before? 

I have watched a council meeting before. I am not very familiar because I’ve never participated in one, and I think you have to experience it by actually being part of it. I’m really hoping that’s going to happen for me. 

Other than what we’ve talked about today, why should people vote for you?

I think people should vote for me because I’m a smart person. I’m very pragmatic and very solutions-orientated. I think I’ve proven that in many things I’ve been involved in, and I would like to think I have a positive relationship with people in the community. I hope people will understand and remember my strong work ethic, and consider that when voting on October 19.

I would like to encourage everyone to come out and vote because in our last election we only had a 48 percent turnout rate for the voting population. I think it is our democratic right, and it’s an opportunity to voice your opinion and vote for people you think might be able to support the things you want in the community that we live in.