The council moved to Battleford a year later based on the planned location there of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Robert Brett became the first Leader of the official opposition and party lines were roughly drawn based on Conservatives and Liberals.

In response on September 1, 1905, the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan were created by Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier out of the southern populated portion of the territories.

Appointed members of the council served as stipendiary magistrates who would travel the territories and oversee legal cases when the legislature was not sitting.

After the creation of Alberta and Saskatchewan, the remainder of the Northwest Territories was too sparsely populated by enfranchised voters to justify holding elections.

The council gradually gained more powers back from the federal government as the population in the territory grew.

Commissioner John Parker gave up his powers of running the executive council and appointed George Braden as leader of the government and the first premier since 1905.

The consensus government model has received criticism on various grounds, including that it hampers long-term political and economic development in the territory because the lack of political parties mean that there is no mechanism to carry over a political agenda from one assembly to the next;[6] that it complicates the ability of less wealthy citizens to serve in the assembly because the lack of political parties means that election candidates must raise all of their campaign funds on their own;[7] that it prevents the voters from being able to demand or vote for systemic change, since there is no mechanism to replace an ineffective or underperforming government with another alternative;[6] and that it hampers efforts to improve diversity in representation, such as the election of more women and ethnic minorities to the legislature.

[8] In 2018, MLA Kieron Testart introduced an amendment to the territorial Elections Act to permit the introduction of party politics in the legislative assembly,[9] but his motion received no support from other MLAs and was dropped.

After the council moved to Fort Livingstone it was housed in the Swan River Barracks used by the North-West Mounted Police.

After the creation of Alberta and Saskatchewan, the capital was moved to Ottawa and the council sessions took place in an office building on Sparks Street.

After the capital was moved to Yellowknife in 1967 a temporary site for the Legislative Assembly was used until the new Legislature building was finished in 1993.

[14] The current membership is as follows: The seven ministers of the Government of the NWT are found in the Executive Council of the Northwest Territories.