Yellowknife election 2026: Roberta Marie Campbell interview

Roberta Marie Campbell is running for city council in this month’s municipal election.

Campbell said she wants to bring an Indigenous northern woman’s perspective to council and promised to be transparent, open and honest with constituents if elected.

“I’m northern through and through,” she said. “I’ve left for university. I’ve come back. I’ve raised my children here. My grandchildren are now being raised here. Yellowknife is home and I’m retired and I want to stay here.”

Campbell said her grandmother is a member of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation and she and her mother are members of the Inuvik Native Band.

Campbell was born and raised in Inuvik and first moved to Yellowknife for nursing school in 2003. She is a retired registered nurse and has worked at the Inuvik and Yellowknife hospitals, the Salvation Army, street outreach and Hope’s Haven (now Home Base Yellowknife).

Her election platform priorities include affordability and responsible city spending, housing and development, community safety, building Yellowknife’s economy and supporting local businesses.

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 6, 2026. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Emily Blake: Why do you want to be a city councillor?

Roberta Marie Campbell: With Stacie [Arden Smith] stepping down and not re-running, I felt there was a place for a northern Indigenous woman’s point of view.

We have how many official languages in the Northwest Territories? Eleven. And not all of them are being represented. When we look at the number of councillors on the board, there’s not a whole lot of females on there, and there isn’t a whole lot of Indigenous representation.

One of your top priorities is affordability and responsible city spending. How do you hope to help the city advance that priority over the next four years?

I’d like us to actually take a look at things like: is it more affordable to have in-house items like snow removal? I know they say part of their snow removal is done in-house, but other parts are contracted out. Well, is it more affordable to have it in-house? Is it more affordable to have it all contracted out? What’s the upkeep on the equipment? What about the insurance it takes? The heating of the building that has to run the equipment?

We’ll also look at what programs they offer. Are those actually affordable? Are we spending more money running the program than what the benefits are? Is there overlap? Are there ways we could streamline things like the building, and can we look at maybe automating some of those things, so that people are able to do other parts of their job instead of sitting there doing paperwork that maybe a computer can do?

Another one of your priorities is housing and development. What is your vision for housing and development in Yellowknife?

My vision for housing and development is that we have more affordable housing and larger homes as well, for those that have intergenerational families, instead of having families split up.

There’s a family in the building I live in that’s three generations split in three different apartments. If they had their choice, they would live all together. Same with another one of my neighbours. There’s two generations living in two different apartments and they would like to live all together. But those options aren’t available unless they have $4,500 a month plus utilities. With someone that’s retired, they don’t have that.

Then you add in the middle aged, and then the younger Yellowknifer – they don’t all have that ability to be forking out that kind of money. So is there a way we can have more affordable homes?

How do you see the city encouraging that or supporting that type of development?

Streamlining some of the permits and making building more economical for those that are building. What lots do we have that are coming up? And yes, we’re opening up those areas, but do we really have to be paying $100,000 for a lot? Does the city have to make money on those lots?

I think it would be more beneficial if the lots were a little cheaper, get more people building, and then you’ll have a bigger, larger tax base.

Another one of your priorities is community safety, homelessness and addictions. What do you think the city could be doing more or better in this area?

We could have more patrols in the areas that we look at. What are our problem areas? Instead of having two vehicles doing speed traps, maybe have someone do the speed trap and someone doing a patrol in the area that is a little more known to have problems. We can look at monthly reports: OK, this area had a higher number of incidents, maybe we should step up the patrols in that area.

Particularly when it comes to homelessness and addictions, different levels of government have different responsibilities. How do you see the city working with other levels of government on this and other issues?

I think the city could actually be the coordinator, bring everyone to the table and say, “OK, what is everyone feeling we need to do?” We have Home Base, we have the northern homeless network, we have the GNWT, and then it’s the city who’s implementing the homelessness funds. So the city is actually already putting themselves kind of in the middle of it.

Maybe they can step up that bit of being that person that says, “OK, what are we going to do?” And if tasks are being taken on, come back to the table. Tell us what you’ve done. Show us what benefit has come. “We’ve given you $100,000. What have you given us? What is there to show for what we’ve given you?”

A fourth priority of yours is building Yellowknife’s future economy and supporting local businesses. What would success in that area look like to you?

Success in that area would be having possibly more than one children’s store, having a store that a woman can go to, being as our only women’s store is going to be closing. Where can they go for formal wear? People are getting married, people are graduating. How many people have to go down south to get dresses for their high school grad or for the parents to be able to dress up for the graduation?

How about the cooking store? When we had Luluz [Market], he had his two different stores where you could buy actual cookware in town that stood up. Just have a variety of things and when you’re walking through the mall, not have it be a ghost town.

What could the city do? Talk to the two partners in Centre Square. Can we get that wall taken down, that gate? It is a big deterrent to having people in the mall. They don’t like having to walk outside to get from one part to the other. So what is the holdback? What does the city need to do or provide those two business owners to have that wall taken down?

How can we have more accessibility to public washrooms? I mean, this summer I don’t know how many times I’ve heard from people visiting Yellowknife: “Do you know where I can use the washroom?” You tell them, and they’re like, “Oh, no, I went to Centre Square, there’s no place to use.” You tell them YK Centre. “Oh, but where in YK Centre? Sorry, I didn’t have a quarter. I didn’t have a loonie.”

I’ve seen in Whitehorse they actually have public washrooms on one of their little maps. Why don’t we have something like that?

What is your familiarity with city council, its meetings and the current work at City Hall?

I’m familiar with city council. My dad was actually in city politics in Inuvik from the 1960s up through to the 1990s. Whether he was a councillor, a deputy mayor, mayor, he was somehow involved. When he had events to go to, I would be the person that would be going with him as his plus one, as my mom was usually volunteering. So I’ve been to many events and council meetings, sitting in.

For Yellowknife, I haven’t gone [in person] to any city council meetings. I’ve watched them, but I haven’t actually been in chambers. I remember you used to get these little flyers in the mail and it told you what city council was doing, and what was going on, and who was asking for building permits, and what reading was going on. It was very informative.

We no longer have those. I wish we could bring those back. It was very informative of what was going on in our city at the time, and you didn’t actually have to be hunting and searching the city website to see what was going on.

Twenty-one candidates are running for council. Why should people vote for you?

To have someone who is very transparent, open, honest, and very willing to speak with anyone and everyone. I’ll meet you wherever you need me to. I will be there to speak with you. You have an issue you don’t want to see me in person? Send me an email. I will always respond. You send me a comment, I’ll respond.

I’m northern through and through. I’ve left for university. I’ve come back. I’ve raised my children here. My grandchildren are now being raised here. Yellowknife is home and I’m retired and I want to stay here.