Mr. Chair, I move that the Elections and Plebiscites Act be amended to require candidates to include statements from accredited financial institutions for campaign accounts in their financial reports to Elections NWT. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Hawkins.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman. As we are discussing the motion here, it never occurred to me before now, and I think this motion needs a couple of words, which are “where practicable.” I think in some cases that accredited financial institutions becomes challenging if you are in a small community.
We did talk about the challenges a community candidate would have. If they are in a small community and they are given cash as a donation, they write a receipt, obviously, and then they need money for gas to go somewhere. The money didn’t flow directly through the bank and get on the statement through that process directly, so when you do a balancing out of the receipts versus the statement, it may not necessarily match and not because of any fault of anyone.
I recognize what we want to do. I fully support the principle of the transparency of that and ensure that everything lines up and is clear and people are doing these things all aboveboard, but frankly, I worry about the practical application, as well, at the same time. The example I gave in committee is if whoever is running in Nahendeh and they just happened to be in Fort Liard and somebody comes up to them and says, here is $500 for your campaign, they are able to issue them a receipt but they need gas money to drive back. Maybe they’re driving back to Fort Simpson or wherever. They need gas. They pay for it. The challenge is the practical application of it. I certainly fully support the intent and it fully makes sense. It is just the operation of it and how do we adjust or balance off this?
The question is: Do I suggest we move an amendment to it? I think that is probably where I should do it right now. I haven’t prepared for it because I just thought of it. So I would like to move an amendment to it.
The Member is proposing an amendment to this motion. We will have to prepare that.
Before we have to break here to prepare this amendment, can the Member clearly articulate exactly what this amendment is? Thank you. Mr. Hawkins.
Mr. Chair, I would add the following at the end of the last word and it states, “where and when practicable.”
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Committee, we will just have to break for a second to prepare an amendment to this motion. Thank you.
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Thank you, committee. I will turn it over to Mr. Hawkins to read in the motion. Mr. Hawkins.
