If you ignored the face masks for a moment, you could stroll through any of the larger communities in the North and almost imagine that the COVID-19 pandemic hadn’t really happened. People would give you a wider berth as you passed on the sidewalk, and you might notice a stronger sense of “buy local” among the shoppers in the stores you visit. But people would be out and about. The streets would be busy, much as they were before the pandemic. Almost.
Indeed, a superficial scan of the data suggests that the territories are coming through one of their most challenging years in decades beaten, but not broken. Nunavut and the Yukon both recorded positive, albeit weak, GDP growth in 2020—1.8 per cent and 2.9 per cent respectively, according to Conference Board of Canada projections—but they were the only two jurisdictions in Canada to do so. The NWT suffered more, seeing economic growth contract 7.6 per cent according to the conference board. But the loss is tempered by expectations for a return to modest growth this year. (The Yukon and Nunavut are expected to boom.)