‘If there were a snap election tomorrow, I’d be supporting the Liberal’

Yellowknife’s two candidates for mayor have opposing backgrounds in federal politics, but they agree on two things: they like Mark Carney and they don’t think federal affiliation matters in a municipal vote.

Cabin Radio asked Garett Cochrane and Melissa Syer to describe their associations with federal political parties and the sums they have donated.

Cochrane described himself as a member of the NWT’s Liberal association “for my entire adult life” who is currently the group’s director at large. He has volunteered for the Liberals in every NWT campaign since 2011, he said, and has donated $30 every month since his late twenties.

Syer said she was the volunteer coordinator for Kimberly Fairman’s campaign as the NWT’s Conservative candidate in the 2025 federal election, describing Fairman as a “friend and a strong Indigenous woman” whom she was proud to support.

Asked about donations to federal election campaigns, she said she had donated $1,750 to the federal party and $1,750 to the NWT’s Conservative association in 2025, alongside a $235 donation in 2019. (Outside campaigns, Elections Canada records also show donations of about $1,700 in each of 2023 and 2024. Syer’s husband, Tim, describes himself as until recently the Conservative Party’s national councillor for the Northwest Territories and has made multiple donations of his own.)

“I do not believe federal party politics belongs in a municipal election. This election is about Yellowknife, the challenges we face and the leadership we need,” Syer said in a written statement.

In a follow-up interview on Thursday, she said: “There’s a reason why there are no federal parties at the municipal level. You’re making decisions for all Yellowknifers that impact their very real lives.”

“I wouldn’t even categorize my political leanings federally as being Conservative. I’ve always been a centrist and independent,” Syer added.

She said her first donation to the Conservatives, in 2019, was from “a general dissatisfaction with the Trudeau government” and it led to her work with Fairman, a candidate she admired, in 2025.

“But of course, before that election took place, some big things changed at the Liberal leadership level … I think Prime Minister Carney has done good work for this country on the world stage, and he’s brought a little bit more seriousness to the position than was previously there,” Syer said.

“The attention that he and Minister Alty” – Rebecca Alty, the former Yellowknife mayor turned NWT Liberal MP – “have brought to the North is such an amazing opportunity. Should I be elected, I would be very excited to work with them.

“And you know, hypothetically, if there were a snap election called tomorrow, I at this point in time would be supporting the Liberal candidate if it were Rebecca Alty again.”

Cochrane was also at pains to stress his Carney credentials at a time when the prime minister is posting unheard-of satisfaction numbers across the country, driven by his approach to relations with the United States and the evolution of his “elbows up” rhetoric into a global diplomatic full-court press.

“I was the northern organizer for the Carney leadership campaign and did a majority of the outreach in the NWT for his bid,” Cochrane wrote in a statement, “including moderating a discussion between Mr Carney and members of the party.”

“I was also quite open to the [Justin] Trudeau fruition of the party, especially after 2015, though I did grow a little disenchanted with that over time,” Cochrane said in a separate follow-up interview.

“I think this current fruition” – Carney’s government – “is the one that I personally fall behind.”

In a mayoral debate broadcast by Cabin Radio earlier this month, the two candidates differed slightly in how they’d approach some topics but were broadly aligned on the major themes. In a lightning round on topics ranging from downtown enforcement to the city’s community plan, they had the same answers.

That agreement extends to how they view the role of federal politics in this election.

“What we deal with is recreation, water, roads, the dump. That really doesn’t have much of a play when it comes to the federal party level, especially during an election,” said Cochrane, though he said his Liberal connections would help afterward if elected.

“It really doesn’t matter what your political stripe is on council,” he added. “We all work together to address the issues of the day for Yellowknife as a whole.”

“We are both people invested in our communities,” said Syer of the two candidates. “We’re interested in who leads [the NWT and its communities] and willing to get out and support a candidate when we think they would be a good leader and bring good things to our territory.”

Election day is Monday, October 19. Cabin Radio’s live election special starts at 7pm with special guests and reporters across the city throughout the evening as results come in.