N.W.T. Premier Caroline Cochrane not seeking re-election

N.W.T. Premier Caroline Cochrane has announced she will not be running for re-election this fall.

“It’s been a privilege to work in this building over the last eight years — an honour that I do not take lightly,” she said while making the announcement in the Legislative Assembly Thursday, describing her two terms as one of the greatest honours of her life.

“I want to thank all my colleagues for being steadfast through some of the most challenging days any of us will ever experience.”

Cochrane was first elected as MLA of Range Lake in 2015, and previously served as minister of education, housing, public works, addressing homelessness and status of women. In her legislature bio, she says her work to assist residents in obtaining, retaining and maintaining their homes is some of her proudest work. She also led the charge to bring 9-1-1 services to the territory.

“One fateful evening about eight years ago, my partner told me that I should run for MLA because he was tired of hearing me complain about how the government wasn’t doing enough,” she told her colleagues of how she got started in territorial politics, saying he’s been a constant but positive “mosquito in her ear” telling her to go for it.

Of Métis descent, Cochrane, 62, holds a degree in social work with 20 years of experience assisting accredited agencies that support high risk families. She was the executive director for the Yellowknife Women’s Society and Centre for Northern Families Daycare, and said she knew systemic change was needed for the territory’s most vulnerable residents.

Soon after, she attended a local campaign school encouraging women to consider politics and didn’t look back. 

“I decided there was no harm in seeing what it was all about, and it was in this campaign school that I realized that there was space for me in politics,” she told her fellow MLAs Thursday.

She was re-elected in 2019 and then elected as premier under the N.W.T.’s consensus government. 

During Cochrane’s tenure as premier, she faced the COVID-19 pandemic, devastating flooding year after year and the 2023 wildfires that led to the majority of the territory needing to evacuate.

That evacuation resulted in the postponement of the territorial election, which will now happen Nov. 14.

She also began advocating for more infrastructure help from the federal government to prepare for the increased wildfire risk that comes with climate change.

“We did not anticipate a global pandemic or the floods or fires we have experienced, but we experienced our strongest moments as an assembly when we work through these challenges together,” she said.

Cochrane thanked both her sons and partner for being her biggest supporters during her two terms, as well as her constituents.

“I don’t know what I will do next, but my passion for public service continues,” she said.