Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Next I have Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think, as Mr. Yakeleya said, we have an opportunity here today to do the right thing, and may I suggest that voting in favour of the motion for 19 Members is not the right thing.

We, as a government, came in here as the 17th Legislative Assembly. We talked about the value of our partnership as a central public government with Aboriginal governments. Here today we have a chance to show respect to the Tlicho Nation, to the folks from our neighbours, and they are our neighbours in the South Slave, in Tu Nedhe. And at what cost? What? Two extra seats here in the Legislature...

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. To the motion. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. To the motion. Minister Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Before I go to the next person on my list for general comments, in the visitors gallery today I would like to recognize several members of the Tlicho leadership, including Grand Chief Eddie Erasmus and our former colleague in this House, Mr. Henry Zoe. I’d also like to recognize the mayor of Yellowknife, His Worship Mayor Heyck. Welcome to the Chamber today.

General comments. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. To the motion. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a very interesting discussion here this afternoon. I was happy to be speaking last because I had a chance to hear everybody’s concerns. I had shared with some of the Members that we had a discussion like this quite a number of years ago when we were discussing how many MLAs we were going to have, and I rushed in and sided with some other people in an attempt to not give an extra seat to Yellowknife and it went to the courts. It ended up instead of five we ended up with seven Yellowknife MLAs. At the time, when I think about it now, it was kind of politically...

Thank you, Minister McLeod. To the motion. Minister McLeod.

Agreed, thank you. I will go straight to general comments on Tabled Document 4-17(5). General comments. Mr. Bromley.

I will call Committee of the Whole back to order. Before we took the break, we were dealing with a committee motion brought forward by… Oh, we’d already finished it.

---Laughter

Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. Alright, Mr. Menicoche.