Debates of October 24, 2006 (day 14)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

How were the maximum annual fuel amounts for the various types of fuel arrived at and how do they compare to the actual amounts needed to heat homes, in particular older homes which are not as heat efficient as the newer homes?

How were the income thresholds for the subsidy arrived at, have they been updated to keep up with the cost of living, and how do they compare with the seniors’ actual incomes?

With respect to the income thresholds, what is the rationale for taking away 25 percent of this subsidy for approximately each additional $250 worth of income; is $250 typically enough to cover the cost of 25 percent of the maximum fuel amounts?

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister responsible for the Workers' Compensation Board.

Would the Minister responsible for the WCB work with the Minister of Justice and bring forward to this House a legislative proposal that would amend or repeal the offending provision of the Workers' Compensation Board Act dealing with the Minister's powers relative to the WCB ratepayers fund within this Assembly?

If the Minister chooses not to bring forward the legislative proposal, would he provide the justification as to why he will not during this current session?

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee.

---Applause

Committee, I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of the committee today? Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Madam Chair. The committee wishes to consider Bill 14, An Act to Amend the Legislative Assembly Executive Council Act, No. 2.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Is the committee agreed?

Agreed.

Agreed. Thank you. We’ll proceed with that after a short break.

---SHORT BREAK

Okay, committee, I'd like to call us back to order, please. We have before us now in Committee of the Whole Bill 14, An Act to Amend the Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act, No. 2. I would like to call on Mr. Pokiak, who is the Member sponsoring this bill, to proceed with opening comments, please. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I am pleased to provide opening comments for Bill 14 on behalf of the Legislative Assembly Board of Management. Bill 14 will amend the Legislative Assembly and Executive Council to revise the electoral districts of the Northwest Territories. The bill proposes changes to the electoral boundaries in the communities of Hay River, Inuvik and Yellowknife, while maintain the status quo in the remaining eight constituencies. Bill 14 does not propose any increase to the number of MLAs in the Legislative Assembly.

Madam Chair, on May 30th, 2006, the report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission, 2006, was tabled in this House. On behalf of the Board of Management and, indeed, all Members, I would like to thank the commission, consisting of the Hon. Justice John Vertes, Mr. Eddie Erasmus of Behchoko, and Mr. Rod O'Brien of Hay River, for its hard work and thoughtful recommendations.

Once the commission's report was tabled, the Legislative Assembly Board of Management and all Members individually spent considerable time analyzing its recommendations. The board consulted with MLAs individually and the Caucus and came away with one dominate message, that now is not the time to expand the size of our Legislature.

In a time when spending on programs and infrastructure is under significant restraint, Members were of the view that increasing the size of the Legislature by two Members, at an annual cost of up to $900,000 per year, was not the responsible thing to do.

Bill 14 implements the commission's recommendations with respect to the rebalancing of the electoral boundaries in Inuvik and Hay River. These recommendations make good sense and do not result in the addition of any seats in the Legislative Assembly.

Madam Chair, Bill 14 does not create an additional seat in the Assembly for Yellowknife, as recommended by the commission, nor does it create a stand-alone seat for the community of Behchoko. The changes recommended for Yellowknife strike a more appropriate balance in the size of the existing seven Yellowknife constituencies such that if none is greater than 25 percent of the average constituency size in the Northwest Territories. The constituency of Monfwi would maintain its current boundaries, make it one of the largest constituencies, although still below the 25 percent guideline established by the Northwest Territories Supreme Court.

Madam Chair, Bill 14 strikes an important balance. It addresses the important and sensitive issue of voter parity without increasing the size of the Legislature. The time is surely coming when additional seats will have to be added to ensure relative equality of representation of electoral boundaries. Bill 14 offers an effective and balanced interim measure. Thank you, Madam Chair. That concludes my opening comments.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. At this time, Mr. Pokiak, I would ask you if you would like to take the witness table.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. I understand you don't have any witnesses so, with that then, I will ask Members if there are any general comments. Okay, to the detail then. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I, too, would like to thank Justice John Vertes, Mr. Eddie Erasmus and Mr. Rod O'Brien for their work on this report. We can see, from reading it, that they travelled across the Northwest Territories to give voters a chance to have their say in the structure of this, the Legislative Assembly, this political institution. I agree that it's necessary for the commission to give the public an opportunity to be heard. I know it's challenging to come up with unanimous recommendations, given the competing positions advanced by members of the public, so I think it's important to note that the members of this commission were unanimous in their recommendations.

As they outlined in the report, they heard about the unique nature of the Northwest Territories with its diversity, its different cultures and its regional interests. They also took note of the various criteria set out in the act that they have to keep in mind, which includes things like geographic factors, including the accessibility size or shape of any area, community boundaries, facilities for and patterns of transportation. So it wasn't just the population that they looked at.

But, Madam Chair, the report also points out that equality of voting power is still the most important factor to be considered in setting electoral boundaries for public government. I think it's important that we remember that the commission is independent of the Legislative Assembly and government, and is consultative only. The commission notes in their report that it's up to this Assembly to decide which, if any, of the recommendations that should be accepted.

But having done that, they remind us of section 3 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which says that everybody has a right to vote, and they talk about what that means and how that's been clearly established in various court decisions across Canada. Madam Chair, I accept that it's impossible to achieve absolute voter parity in the Northwest Territories, given all the factors that must be considered, and I also accept that Yellowknife voters have much easier access to their MLAs than do most voters in the Northwest Territories.

The other point that the commission report makes is that the weight of Yellowknife voters right now is likely adequate, given the availability of Yellowknife MLAs to their constituents. I have to say that most of the advice that I've received at my constituency meetings, in conversation or by e-mail agree with what the commission heard from the majority of presenters in Yellowknife, and that is that we don't need more than 19 seats in the NWT Legislative Assembly. I know that I certainly heard from constituents who said that they also were not prepared to see any reduction in voting weight. So if a new constituency is to be added outside of Yellowknife, then there must be one within Yellowknife.

Madam Chair, we also heard that the commission had its strongest presentation for an additional riding in Monfwi, and my colleague Mr. Lafferty has very eloquently pressed the case for an additional seat with me. I understand that he's under some pressure from his constituents and the leadership in that region to push for another seat. I think what this had done in part, Madam Chair, because I recognize, as do my constituents, the cost of adding seats in the Legislative Assembly is that in hindsight I think we should have given the commission one more guideline. I think we should have asked the commission to make recommendations for us that would keep the seats at 19, while perhaps taking into account those requests like we're hearing from areas like Monfwi, and looking at areas where we have overrepresentation right now in our constituencies. I would certainly suggest that a guideline like that be considered for the next commission and, if not, we'll soon be well over 24 Members in the not-too-distant future.

Madam Chair, since we didn't do that and in order to accommodate the very strong wishes of the residents of Monfwi, personally, I support the recommendations of the commission, and I would say that we tasked the commission to listen to people across the Northwest Territories. I point out that the majority of the members on that commission come from outside Yellowknife, and again say that their recommendations are unanimous. So because of that, I am prepared to support the recommendations of the commission for adding two seats.

I must say, though, that one thing I can't support from the recommendation is the name that they proposed for the new constituency of Pud Lake. I think that may be, or may have been in the past, a tailings pond and I'm not certain that it would be appropriate to name a constituency that. So if we are considering amendments that would see another constituency in Yellowknife, I will be proposing a different name than Pud Lake for it. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. General comments. Next I have Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The issue of recommendations by the Electoral Boundaries Commission brought me back to if we had two extra seats added to the Assembly it was going to be a dominoes affect down the Mackenzie Valley. I strongly support the status quo of 19 Members. The amount of money that's going to be taken out of certain programs within this government is going to have an affect on our programs in the smaller communities. Adding more seats to the House will add more costs. It has an effect on the Cabinet and on the Assembly as a whole.

Madam Chair, the people in the Northwest Territories, especially over the last couple of weeks, think adding a couple more Members to the House would be somewhat questionable. The funding that's going to be required to increase the size of this House is astronomical, especially in light of the programs. The requests that we're asking Cabinet to provide for our communities is going to very, very short listed and limited. I cannot support that and I will not support that. We need to rethink this and think this for the next Assembly maybe.

Madam Chair, I like providing equal representation of some of the boundaries in some of the larger centres. I spoke to the Electoral Boundaries Commission. When you look at my region, you're looking at about a little over 280,000 square kilometres of territory that I cover. For me to fly into each of those communities, meet with each of the leaders -- and there's about three to six or seven leaders that I meet with on different issues -- the Metis, the band, the land corps, education, the chiefs, the mayors and other regional groups, and that's for almost for each community in my region. Usually it takes about $8,000 to do a two-day tour in my region.

So when we look at electoral boundaries and we look at the work, I think our communities are somewhat left out in terms of how we represent our people in the smaller communities. We have different jurisdictions every time we meet in a different community, as opposed to meeting in the larger centres like Yellowknife, Hay River and Inuvik or in Fort Smith. The chief maybe, mayor; that's it. But we in the small communities meet with different leaders, different cultures, different dialects. Even in Deline last year I was told that there were 33 different agencies in just the community of Deline. So when we look at equal representation and representing our people, in the small communities I represent we are truly left out. But I think we all do a good job in representing our people and I'd like to stay with the status quo of 19 and not add another budget item and increase our budget to have two more Members come, otherwise I would have to consider adding a Member to the Sahtu and I do not want to do that right now.

So, Madam Chair, I'd like to stay with the 19, re-jig the boundaries. As it said in here, as Mr. Pokiak has said, it makes good, common sense for this legislation to stay where we are and we thankful for the Electoral Boundaries Commission for the hard work they have done. We listen to people and the Sahtu region will not support two additional Members for the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. For general comments I have Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I, as well, support the bill as brought forward with the boundaries of existing jurisdictions, constituencies, in Yellowknife, Hay River, Inuvik adjusted which keeps every constituency under the 25 percent as required by the court ruling.

Madam Chair, the issue comes up repeatedly and the political discussion, as Minister Dent indicated, that we have to have, that we chose not to have when we started this process because I recollect it was raised by myself and maybe one other, is it's going to be up to us politically as a Legislature to set the ceiling of what we consider adequate government and have a boundaries commission operate within that basic parameter. Otherwise, I, as well, have the same concern and we have seen it ratchet up since division. But the easiest way out is you just keep adding more and more seats, you have MLAs tripping over themselves. We are the most over-governed jurisdiction, when you look at all the levels of government that we have; federal, territorial, municipal and all the other organizations that are there. There is a significant cost and I believe that we are well suited to do the business of this House with the membership that we currently have. I agree, as well, that this can be seen as an interim measure and the Legislature of the 16th Assembly will hopefully look at the debate and put it on this table and recognize that one of the challenges they have to do when they set out the terms of reference is have the political discussion ahead of time about the future of the Northwest Territories, and what do we need to provide good government when it comes to MLAs. I know there is a concern that large centres, some communities have the numbers but a small geographic area. Some regions or constituencies have a large geographic area and relatively small numbers comparatively speaking. Our focus is, and has been, mainly on the numbers, not on the effect of the geography, which is a challenge in itself when you look at the federal constituencies where I believe Nunavut and the Northwest Territories are the two largest jurisdictions in the country with over one million and a half or so square kilometres each and one MLA to cover that whole vast territory, but a relatively small number of people. It's an issue that we have to look at as well next time.

But for this particular exercise, I fully support keeping it the same, adjusted within the 19. For my constituents, it is very clear that we don't need any more government. But if we have an extra half million dollars a seat or whatever it is, then let's put that half million dollars into the base somewhere to do fuel rebates, to do wood stove programs, promote energy efficiency, more nurses, more doctors, more teachers, language programs, and the list could go on; chipsealing Highway No. 5.

---Laughter

So if there's any concern about finding the money, then I think we could all find ways to put that money to better use than adding more MLAs just because the court says and we want to see if there's a Legislature, just keep ratcheting up the number of MLAs in shrinking constituencies. Our job is to make the tough decision. We didn't do it at the front end. We have a chance to hold the line here and hopefully set it up to do it the next time. But I would suggest to you it would not be responsible for us to add to the cost of government that is already very, very high, so I fully support this Bill 14 as it's laid out. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Next on the list I have Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Along with myself, I think there were five MLAs altogether who made presentations to Justice Vertes and the other two members of the Electoral Boundaries Commission earlier this year. Madam Chair, there were two points that I put to the commission at the time. The first one was that, indeed, there was no need to grow the size of the Assembly. The 19 Members provided for in the NWT Assembly were enough to do the work, perform the tasks that we're required to do, and so that maintaining the 19 was, at least from the point of view of the capacity and the number of MLAs required was adequate.

The other request was to look at within the existing ridings to shave the peaks, if you will, and fill the valleys where we could do some adjustments with our ridings, especially in Yellowknife and then, of course, in Hay River and Inuvik, Madam Chair, to bring some more consistency to all our ridings and in effect do some housekeeping in that respect. I think that through the bill as presented, the second part of my request was indeed fulfilled, Madam Chair.

But to the first part of it, the size, the growth of the Legislative Assembly, this is where I put considerable weight, a considerable emphasis, Madam Chair, in the assignment that we gave to the boundaries commission to go out there and listen to the constituencies, listen to our people, and come back with their best recommendations on how our territory is changing, how our demographics are changing, where the populations are potentially shifting to, where they are going to shift. This is what the commission did. They came back with a recommendation for the expansion of two ridings. Given the report they came back with, Madam Chair, and in the process of that, the signals that we received from the community of Behchoko that they strongly felt they deserved and, indeed, were sort of at the threshold of warranting a new riding, that this made sense. I also know, Madam Chair, that from the point of view of my community of Yellowknife, that there would be an offsetting desire to create some parity here and look for an additional seat in Yellowknife.

Madam Chair, a reality is that Yellowknife now has I believe somewhere in the neighbourhood of 47 or 48 percent of the population in the Northwest Territories, but here in the Legislative Assembly about 37 or 38 percent of the voting weight. That is, I believe, an allowable discrepancy, but I know that there are people in the community, and I will say I'm one of them, that I do not want to see that level of representation, comparative representation, eroded, Madam Chair. I think on that basis that establishing another seat for Yellowknife is a way of maintaining the parity, or at least the perception of parity, in our relative populations.

So in that respect then, Madam Chair, as I did in my newsletter in June, I have endorsed the recommendation of the boundaries commission and I favour that position on the floor of the Assembly today.

Madam Chair, I think it's important to consider that in making this kind of decision, one of the MLAs, of course through the Electoral Boundaries Act, have taken the work of the boundaries commission as a recommendation. We have the final say, at least in terms of the act and our own decision-making capacity. But, Madam Chair, I do want to keep in mind that we aren't the only ones who have a say in how representation should be determined. Regular citizens, Madam Chair, quite rightly have the opportunity if they feel that their representation is not fair and balanced with those of others in the Northwest Territories, they can take their grievance to a court and have it heard.

Madam Chair, eight years ago that is indeed what happened to this Assembly, and there was quite an unexpected outcome I think to what the legislators-of-the-day thought would be the case when they decided to ignore or decline the recommendation of the boundaries commission in 1999, or was it 1998, Madam Chair. This is especially an area of concern to me, Madam Chair, that I think in seeking the support of the recommendations of the boundaries commission, we are supporting the people of Behchoko, we are supporting the people of Yellowknife, we are avoiding, I believe, the potential for this issue going yet again into the courts, and potentially for the Legislative Assembly to let go something that we should indeed have responsibility for and take the steps, indeed, to represent our citizens as equitably and fairly as we can. So in that respect, Madam Chair, it's perhaps fitting that the voter, the constituent in this case can and does and may have the last word in this issue, and that is why I support the boundaries commission and the creation of two more ridings, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Next on the list I have Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Madam Chair. Madam Chair…(English not provided)

Madam Chair, I’d just like to highlight what I’ve said in my own language, that with the report that came out in May and also just with the recent report from Mr. Pokiak, that there was a statement there that came away with one dominant message. Madam Chair, not all Members agreed at that time in the Lutselk’e meeting that there was one voice. Some Members disagreed with what took part there. So I would just like to highlight that as a clarification and the number of change from the recommendation itself as well. There was $600,000 and now it’s $900,000.

Anyways, I’d like to touch on the Monfwi and Behchoko riding that we’ve been highlighting for quite some time now. This past spring, Madam Chair, the Electoral Boundaries Commission recommended that the current riding of Monfwi be divided in two ridings, Behchoko and Monfwi, which include Edzo, Whati, Gameti and Wekweeti. Behchoko will be a standalone. This commission made the recommendation based on the list of 12 criteria stipulated by the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act and I will touch on some of them.

Madam Chair, the community boundaries established on the lands, resources, self-government agreements, including land claims and treaty land entitlement agreements. Two, demographic factors, including the scarcity, density or related growth of population of any area. Three, patterns of transportation, the communication within and between the different areas. Four, language, cultural and other special community and diversity of interests of the residents of Northwest Territories. Madam Chair, the population of Monfwi puts it at plus 25 percent of average variation, a recommendation that came out of the Electoral Boundaries Commission, meaning that it is significantly under-represented. Behchoko has steadily increased in population over the past 10 years, Madam Chair. It is the largest aboriginal community in the Northwest Territories.

Madam Chair, Hay River, Inuvik and Dehcho all have two seats. Monfwi has the same or greater population. This precedent has already been set in this House. It only makes sense for Monfwi to have two seats as well. Madam Chair, it makes sense to divide Monfwi riding as recommended. Behchoko is on the highway system and has reasonable access to goods and services offered in Yellowknife. The outlying communities are accessible only by air or ice roads and, therefore, have limited access to these services. The concerns of each type of communities are different from each region. To ensure a fair and equitable representation to outlying communities, again it only makes sense to have our own riding, recognizing their uniqueness, demographic factors and the needs arising from these, Madam Chair.

The creation of the Tlicho Government has meant increased demands upon the MLA as a conduit between that level of government and territorial government demands another MLA in this region or NWT has yet to be faced. Because of the uniqueness in governance, Tlicho members living in Yellowknife who are recognized as a member of Tlicho by birthright, not because of where they chose to live, often call upon myself for assistance, Madam Chair. These Tlicho members often have concerns tied to their original communities. They should be considered part of the decision, but they are not, Madam Chair. The Tlicho people pride themselves on the fact that we are the largest aboriginal group in the Northwest Territories. We have worked hard to maintain our language and cultural traditions. This makes us unique from Yellowknife or other larger centres.

Some would recommend that we should keep the status quo. Madam Chair, if status quo means my region is significantly under-represented, status quo means outlying communities remain unrepresented and neglected. If I would argue with a stronger voice, smaller communities would have voted out, as an example, the $40 million courthouse for YK or other major projects in larger centres that I’ve encountered in the past. Instead, that money would have gone to the region as where our priority lies. How often do we have to be outvoted before we figure out that status quo only serves to keep our smaller communities marginalized and silenced, Madam Chair?

Dividing Monfwi into two ridings does not only benefit the Tlicho, it would serve the betterment of all small communities in the Northwest Territories. Madam Chair, if it takes my support for the Electoral Boundaries Commission’s recommendation, then I will support it in order to get a seat for the Monfwi riding.

Madam Chair, I’ve had a teleconference today with my leadership just prior to noon and they’re watching us and they’re waiting patiently of the outcome of this session. Mahsi Cho.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Next I have Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Madam Chair. First let me again also have my thanks to Honourable Justice John Vertes, Eddie Erasmus and Rod O’Brien who put a lot of work into travelling and hearing from the people of the Northwest Territories and putting together this commission report. I think it was a very useful exercise.

As has been indicated here by a number of other Members, in hindsight maybe we should have sat down and talked about some more constraints on the commission in terms of limiting the number of seats and limiting the growth in government. I think that’s certainly something that we need to take into account and we task the next Electoral Boundaries Commission in the number of years going forward. I think that there’s a lot of merit in that.

Madam Chair, let me say that I am in support of this commission’s report and I’ll tell you that the primary reason for this, and I have had the benefit I guess that maybe not all Members have had to the same extent, but I’ve had the benefit to travel extensively with the Member in the Tlicho region. I’ve listened to people very passionately and eloquently articulate their desire for additional representation. I think it’s more than the numbers, Madam Chair. They’ve made a very compelling argument, in my mind, as has the Member, that when we talk about the rural and urban dynamics in this House, we know that Members who represent one community or part of a community have a set of challenges. Those who represent a number of other communities, smaller communities, have an entirely different set of challenges. I can tell you that I believe that the Member for Monfwi has both of those sets of challenges. I think the dynamic in Behchoko has changed over a number of years. I think the economy has grown and matured; I think there are a number of urban realities and challenges. I think eventually Behchoko will be a tax-based municipality because it already has the burden that a number of other tax-based municipalities have. It has a number of people and growing and, in fact, I believe that the population estimates that we have that we’ve discussed don’t adequately represent the actual size of that community.

I’ve talked to a number of people, the local leadership, Chief Lafferty, and many of the people who I consider to be authorities on the matter would tell you that there are certainly close to 2,000 people in that community. I’ve spent some time there, I’ve had a chance to travel around and I believe it, Madam Chair, but yet with all of the urban challenges in Behchoko, to travel in the smaller outlying Tlicho communities is to see the rural challenges and to see communities who are very traditional, as the Member has indicated, don’t have the same access, are doing a very good job, in my opinion, of maintaining their culture, their respect for the land, maintaining their spirituality.

I think in this region the motto “Strong Like Two People” continues to come to mind. I think that is very much embodied in the current Member who I think has attributes that respect both of those needs in his community to create economic opportunities for his people, and yet to hold on and maintain the traditions of the past. I think we need to give this region every opportunity to do that. I think a seat for Behchoko is warranted, a separate seat, because I do think the challenges are so much different than those in the outlying regions of the communities, and it’s for that reason and not because I think that Yellowknife needs another seat or is under-represented, it’s for that region and that reason that I certainly support an additional seat for Monfwi.

Having said that, I understand that to diminish the representation in Yellowknife is problematic and I think will inevitably lead to a court challenge that will determine that we need to see another Yellowknife seat. So my belief is that we can pay the money and go to court and end up with two seats, or we can do what I think is the right thing and give Monfwi a seat. I think in future there will be other regions that need seats, we have to respect that, but I do think that we should sit down and talk about limiting the size and growth of government, however, Madam Chair.

Let me say, I’ve also taken the chance and the opportunity to look at a lot of the jurisprudence. I am aware that our Court of Appeal, the Alberta Court of Appeal has talked about the difference between having a commission of elected officials sit down to decide how many seats they need and have, an independent commission do their work, and obviously, not surprisingly, they’ve put a lot of weight in an independent commission. I’d look at the membership of our commission, I know that they’ve done some good thorough work and that has a lot of weight with me. I give that, Madam Chair, a lot of credence. I can also say that in the Maritimes and a couple of other jurisdictions, the 25 percent rule of thumb is changing and other jurisdictions are looking, and there is some precedent for this, at a 20 percent rule of thumb. We may be moving in that direction. So, Madam Chair, let me say I think in future we do need to constrain the growth in government and we need to give maybe some more explicit direction to a commission, but we taxed this commission to go out and hear from people and do a job to the best of its ability. I think it has done that and I think the Tlicho people deserve an additional seat. Therefore, I will be supporting the recommendations of the commission to add two seats. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Next on the list I have Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to thank, as well, the commission members for the hard work and the job that they did on developing the recommendations contained in the report and it’s very interesting hearing other Members around this room discussing this very important topic. I listened quite closely to what my colleague Mr. Lafferty had to say from Monfwi and appreciated what he had to say. From where I stand, and I don’t want to go over a lot of ground most Members have covered, but from where I stand I think an important factor in all this is we try our best to stay out of court. I think we certainly could be challenged on a number of fronts. The bill as it’s presented, obviously, with the redistribution of ridings in Yellowknife, Inuvik and Hay River, does bring Monfwi under the 25 percent, but I think I err more on the side of reality. I think the commission went out, they did their work and I tend to agree with some of my colleagues that Monfwi does deserve, in fact, another seat and I’d like to support that in happening. However, that also includes another seat for Yellowknife and I think the easy thing to do and the best thing to do, if you went out on the street, Madam Chair, and you talk to 100 people, probably 90 percent of them would say that we do not need any more MLAs in this Legislative Assembly and that would be the consensus out there. Now if we went with the status quo, ended up in court and ended up with four or five new Members for this Legislative Assembly, that to me would be more disturbing than just accepting the recommendations in the report and moving forward.

Mr. Lafferty mentioned in his opening comments that his leadership is looking at the recommendations and willing to accept the recommendations contained in the report. This, Madam Chair, I believe will keep us out of court and it will add another seat in Yellowknife, yes, but I think it’s a fair and reasonable balance in allowing the community of Behchoko to have its own seat.

Madam Chair, I just wanted to close with that and look forward to further debate. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Next on the list for general comments I have Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to put on record my position on this bill as well. Madam Chair, I would like to start by thanking the commission and the commission members along with all the other Members for the work that they have done. I’d like to say, for the record, that I am not in support of the bill as it’s written as it suggests keeping a status quo of 19 Members plus redrawing some of the borders. So I will not be supporting it unless it’s amended to reflect the commission’s report.

Madam Chair, let me just say that the reason why I take this position is because I believe that it is in the public interest that we are here to protect and in the interest of this Legislature for us to accept this recommendation. First of all, let me just talk about the deference to the commission I believe that this Legislature should pay attention to, because I think that we should be mindful of the fact that this commission is not just a regular advisory board where the work of our Legislature is helped by, in many, many different instances, we have lots of boards where Ministers appoint Members to and those recommendations are subject to our acceptance or not. I would submit an argument that this commission is not such a board. It is a statutory board and the members of that commission were appointed by a legislative action in this House. It was done by a formal motion in this House and I believe there is a lot of distinction in that as opposed to some other appointment. This commission went out there to do the work that they were tasked with by a former motion of this legislature. They had very specific provisions in the Commission Act; as well, they had lots of other legislation and historical analysis they were asked to look at.

Madam Chair, I also believe, and I want to answer to some of the other suggestions made I believe that the commission looking into the issues that the Members are raising. I don’t believe the commission’s recommendations reflect strict population parity. I do believe that the commission looked at the regional remoteness, the regional government situations, the fact that some ridings have six or seven communities that the MLA in charge has to look after, because they were asked to look into that. Specifically, I believe, and I have attended a number of meetings that the commission had in the city, and I believe in the report it mentions the fact that it looked at the special committee report on sunset clause, for example, in the last Assembly where this Legislature dealt with districting. There were very strong recommendations made for the commission to look at issues other than population parity, because I tell you, Madam Chair, if the commission just looked at the population parity, it would have come back with more than just two seats, or it could have looked at nine seats possibly for Yellowknife out of 19. The fact that it didn’t I believe speaks to the fact that the commission did not look at specifically to population parity and that the commission looked at all the other concerns the Members are raising here. So I think that it should be with great carefulness that this Legislature rejects the recommendation of the commission.

There are lots of things in hindsight we could have done if there were very strong opinions here that the House should not grow any bigger for budgetary reasons or financial reasons as presented here, then that should have been made clear, which I would argue was not. But I think that that was mentioned in some of the hearings and I do believe that the commission considered that and rejected that and it’s the commission’s right to do so. The commission could have reduced a smallest riding or amalgamated it with another riding. I believe that was in their books too. I believe they looked at whether 19 was best or we should go lower or higher, but I believe that they looked at that and they chose not to address the overrepresentations scenario, but looked primarily into the under-representation. So I have to say that my decision in this regard is strictly with the deference to the work of the commission.

Another thing that I want to say about the arguments being made here that we really don’t have money to spend on extra MLAs and I think there’s a strong argument to be made in that. I could tell you that in the constituency meeting that I had in June when this report came out, this was a topic of discussion and I would agree with all the Members who said that the general population in Yellowknife are not looking for an extra Member for Yellowknife. But I tell you, they guard very close to the idea of voting parity. I would argue that voting parity in this regard is a Charter right. It’s not an issue where it’s a decision that could be made just on the political will. Some have suggested that it’s for us to make a political decision, but I would argue that the Charter right of an individual voting person and their voting parity is not up to us to decide, it’s not at our disposal. A person voting in Range Lake should not have one-third of voting power of somebody in Tu Nedhe. The fact that the commission decided that that’s okay for the Tu Nedhe Member to be overrepresented, but the commission spoke that under-representation too far above 25 percent is not allowed. I believe that the commission and these Members did the work and that we should not disregard the committee recommendations lightly.

Let me just say also, to reject the committee recommendation because so many ridings are so close to 25 percent and because we know that this issue will not be visited again for another eight years, I would suggest that it would be quite irresponsible for this Legislature to not address so many ridings where it’s either at 25 percent or over 30 percent. So I would suggest to you, Madam Chair, that my position is that I believe that the commission looked at all of the considerations that we are looking at and they made the recommendation that Monfwi should get an extra seat and that Yellowknife should get the voting parity. In that regard, I think that I will be strongly supporting that.

Somebody suggested that we should do this to avoid court challenge. I might just switch that around and say that I don’t want to do the things in this House because I feel threatened by a court challenge. Although I think that should be a consideration, I think what we should consider ourselves is that it is more harmful for us as a legislator to give away someone’s protected Charter right when we do we have a Charter that says that’s wrong and the court will step in. So I don’t know if anybody could see the distinction on that, but I believe that it is our job as a legislator to protect the Charter rights of everyone, and this is not talking about strict voting parity here, I mean I think the voters outside of Yellowknife are overrepresented and the commission said it’s okay and the law has said it’s okay, but how far do we go with that? The commission has drawn the line here and I think it’s to our interest and in order that we do our jobs here, that we accept the committee’s recommendation and move forward from that. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Next I have Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The things I’m going to say are really reflective of what I’ve heard in my community, the constituency of Yellowknife Centre. The fact is, I appreciate the work the commission did, but we also have to keep in context that they are an advisory group and they do not force us. They are an administrative body that we commissioned out of this House to go find research, come back and to substantiate what they heard into some formulation and then send it off as a proposal to the politicians. Now, in essence, the politicians are the ones that actually have to make the decision.

I’m concerned that I think the report, to some degree, although I sincerely do appreciate their work, I feel it’s flawed in the sense of fundamental principle, because I don’t think that they heard what the people were saying; they heard what the lobby groups were putting forward. The reason I say that is because I read page 6 of the report and it talks about where they basically heard a strong voice of keeping status quo, and then they heard a strong voice from small communities outside of Yellowknife to give them more MLAs. They heard, you know, don’t change anything that could cause the increase to Yellowknife. You know, they even point out the high cost of travel between communities. Now every one of those is significant on their own right and I wouldn’t want to say that it isn’t, but now we’re getting into high cost of travel between communities. I mean, that is not for this report to be talking about. This report should be talking about fair representation, not what it costs to put gas in your car or to buy a plane ticket.

So I read this and I think, you know, to be honest -- and I say this with an enormous amount of respect for the Tlicho people, and the Tlicho Member knows that I mean this -- that I have a lot of respect for those folks, but my concern is they lobbied the heck out of this commission and they did a fabulous job. I mean we should commend them in a sense of they brought busloads of people. Well, from my community perspective, people I heard from thought it was going to be status quo. If they had any assumption that it wasn’t going to be status quo, they would have brought trucks and busloads of people to lobby too and say well, wait a minute, there is a voter problem, and the voter problem that I see it as in a sense of in the House is Yellowknife is still under-represented by at least between one and two MLAs and that’s because of our population throughout the Territories it isn’t being fairly represented in this House.

The people I spoke to said one clear thing, which was they want programs, not politicians. So when we recognize that the cost is almost $900,000, that’s almost $1 million we’ll be putting into, potentially, MLAs. That causes people concern. So what did the fiscal Conservatives say? Did they want more politicians or did they want more programs?

The problem I have with this report is I was actually one to side with Mr. Miltenberger who believed that we should set from the very start to say no more MLAs. So stop at 19, do the hard decisions, but I don’t think they seriously considered the two big factors of what to do with the smallest riding and how to deal with the weight of a vote.

Again, I still have to go back to the fact that Yellowknife is still being under-represented in fairness. I guess I kind of dismissed, to some degree, the fear-mongering people may have or may be suggesting or the private citizen saying if we don’t adopt this, we will go to court for sure if we don’t go their way. But we have to remember, that’s the right of anyone. That’s the great democracy we have and we share here. Sometimes we require judicial guidance to finally get the true answer or the right answer. I am sometimes challenged when I listen to some folks about what is the right decision, because what has changed in Yellowknife so significantly, what has changed in the Northwest Territories so significantly that we have to justify two more bodies? I have to point out, yet again, Yellowknife is still short over one Member. If we do 45 percent of the population in the Northwest Territories, it is not represented here in seats in the Legislature.

I am concerned that the lobby effort, again I recognize that had swayed the commission and the commission felt that they heard very strongly that a group of individuals wanted another MLA in their region. To be honest, what I think I heard from the Member who represents that region here today, is the fact that people in Yellowknife and anywhere else still treat themselves as Tlicho citizens first. So, therefore, they call their Monfwi representative first, rather than their local MLA. I think that’s truly a problem. I don’t know how to help the Member in that regard. He’s got to do and he does, by all means, do the best job he certainly can. I certainly wouldn’t want to take away the person’s opportunity to feel that that is the MLA they should call. I recognize that the Member works very hard for people of his nation no matter where they live. I think that’s a problem and we have to figure out as a Legislature how to do this.

I go back to say that the commission is truly an advisory commission and there is nothing here that binds their hands and forces us to accept it either way. We could strike it down and say we need 23 MLAs. We could strike it down and say we want 20 or we want to go to 17, for goodness sake. So there are a lot of options. They are recommendations.

I will dispute one thing my colleague did say. Actually, I often hear that Yellowknife is the largest aboriginal community and we have a significant aboriginal population that makes Yellowknife a great place. That’s got to be recognized, too.

So it’s truly a challenge here to find the right way to make a final decision. I have very strong views from other sides of constituents in all fairness, Madam Chair, and I have to make sure that their concerns get out as well. The fact that this is one of the few opportunities that Yellowknife has to put more bums in seats here and finally show that there is fair voter parity in the Northwest Territories. The fact is that it is one of the few chances to open up this discussion to say we can have a more fair process. Will Yellowknife be under-represented if we go to eight seats and we have 21 in the whole Legislature? Yes, we won’t solve the problem. If we really wanted to deal with the problem, the last court challenge would have said let’s consider numbers only and they would have done it and we would have ended up with nine seats in a House of 19. I know they recognize the diversity of the North and the importance of balancing reasonable situations where you can be overrepresented. You have to recognize language, history and geographical lines and that’s why they came up with seven out of 19. I respect that. Like I said at the very start, sometimes these things require judicial guidance and maybe that’s where this has to go.

Madam Chair, to close this off in a fair way, I have a few very strong constituents that are advocating that we seize the opportunity to grab the extra seat for Yellowknife, only I wish a Member wouldn’t have said that the communities would have voted against the courthouse because that would have been their chance. I wish this play between the small communities and the city of Yellowknife would stop. I like to think that the Yellowknife Members continually support the small communities when we can in a fair and reasonable way.

So, Madam Chair, I haven’t totally made up my mind which way we will be going, with 19 or 21. I will be taking a few more minutes to listen to my colleagues and I will be making a clear and decisive decision when the time is required. Thank you, Madam Chair, for your time.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Next on the list I have Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I will just start off by thanking the members of the commission for coming out with this report. I think it opens a lot of ideas in this House to how we can treat voter representation on a fair and even ground. I just want to say that the rebalancing of the Inuvik, Hay River and Yellowknife constituencies definitely will bring everybody under the 25 percent deviation, plus or minus, that we want. I don’t believe that a bigger government is a better government. I have to agree with that on a lot of what all Members here were saying about some guidelines that should have been clear to the commission in what we were looking to get out of the commission, as opposed to building bigger government and spending more money.

The issue here is under-representation. The overrepresentation is not even an issue here. With the under-representation, all these communities that are pretty borderline on the 25 percent deviation, I don’t think in the next five to 10 years there is going to be much change in any of these numbers. Percentage-wise, maybe three to five percent given the development of the Mackenzie gas project, and maybe the Deh Cho where they become more even and Monfwi will probably grow and Yellowknife might even shrink.

I think given these numbers that we look at here, they are all so close, so who is under-represented? Just because you are on that 25 percent threshold, does that really mean you are under-represented if everyone else is 22 or 23? I think we are all on the same playing field and it should be noted as such. Nobody is plus 35 or near the 30s. There is no real large split between the communities that we feel are under-represented. I don’t think that adding more seats in this House is going to change these numbers by any significant improvement, as far as I can see.

Just with a note on that, like the other Member was saying, this is a Charter right, this 25 percent voter parity issue. It’s also acceptable to be over 25 percent also, as stated in the commission’s report. These are based on regional concerns. They are acceptable if they contribute to better government. I think across the board, everybody in the NWT is pretty well represented in this House with the 19 Members that we have here. I do fully understand and support that Monfwi really is on a borderline for under-representation based on the fact that the geographic layout of the territory is one that has the Member dealing with all the challenges that we in the House here, many of us only have to deal with some of those geographic challenges on one side of the coin; whereas, Behchoko being on the main road system and all the other communities -- Gameti, Wekweeti -- are fly in only or drive in in the winter, you know, presents twice as many challenges for any Member in this House. But again, I have to say that Behchoko is on the road and it's close to Yellowknife. Like one Member was saying, if they wanted this government to support them on some initiative that they feel to get done or changed or have implemented, they will come over here in busloads and fill the gallery and they're lobbying right there. Whether they have one, two, three Members sitting in this House, I don't think it's going to make their efforts to get represented here in this House any more or any better than what it is today. Just with the whole population dynamics, it seems like with the latest Stats Canada numbers our population is going down. So who's to say what's going to change in eight years? Maybe everything will even out even better or look better in eight years, maybe it won't. Maybe we'll need an extra five seats in eight years, but that's to be seen.

With respect to any court challenges, we could get challenged on anything. Like other Members said, that's up to the public, that's their decision for them to make and I don't think it's something that we here should be backed into a corner and saying if you do this we're going to take you to court. With me that doesn't really change my opinion of how we can make decisions here in this House, because everything we do decide here is open to legal challenge no matter what it is.

So I just want to summarize by saying that I do support the Monfwi seat, but if it has to come with Yellowknife getting an extra seat because it is one of the recommendations, I'm not supportive of that. But I don't know why they didn't just make a recommendation to add one seat for Monfwi period and draw some new electoral boundaries in Yellowknife, Hay River and Inuvik. So I don't think all the options were really considered here, looking at what people were telling them. Like another Member said, everybody in the NWT feels like they're pretty well represented here as it stands and I just have to go with what the general public tells me and how I'm going to be voting on this bill. I'll have to support what Bill 14 is recommending. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Still on general comments then. Next I have Mr. Robert McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm glad to have this opportunity to make some comments towards this bill. I look at the numbers on here and I see an overall population of 42,810. That's one riding for a lot of MLAs south. If you look at some of the numbers here, 2,800, 1,700, the numbers are low and for us to say that they're under-represented, if they're under-represented they're not getting adequate representation and we're not doing our job. That's the way I look at it.

I fully respect the people from the Monfwi's lobbying to get another seat, but I have to say that if the people from the Monfwi would like another seat, then I think the people from the Sahtu need a seat, the people from the Deh Cho need another seat, the people from the Inuvialuit/Gwich'in need another seat. So that's the way I look at it, and I say that in all due respect. But we have to be realistic here and look at the numbers and see that the numbers are not that high. Eighteen hundred sixty-five people, I should know them all by their first name.

Hear! Hear!

It's not like we've got ten, fifteen thousand people to look after.

I look at the ridings of some of the Members here and I see the Member for Nunakput has a wide geographical riding. He has to go all over. Same with the Member for the Sahtu. He has a lot of communities he has to cover.

Hear! Hear!

I really can't see adding two extra seats. You know we go around and we say, well, we're not going to give you any more money for your transition house, or we're cutting your money for this. Oh and by the way, we're adding two seats and $1 million. People don't like that. I mean we're constantly saying we're going to cut programs and cut your funding or make them wait for their funding, and to add two seats…Now, I respect the work that the commission had to do. In the case of the riding in Inuvik, I don't really think that they've done their homework. I don't agree with the lines that they drew. There's an historical boundary in Inuvik that's recognized by the municipality and it's a boundary that the municipality uses in all their municipal elections. So in that regard, I don't agree with the line that they drew in Inuvik. There's going to be a whole pile of development going on on the other side of town. They didn't take that into consideration.

But the bottom line is, Madam Chair, I look at the numbers and the numbers aren't huge. For us to sit here, and I'm sure people out there are saying well, don't you guys have anything better to talk about? I look at the numbers here; 42,000 people, 19 of us. I don't think there's any need to add any more seats to anywhere and the argument that well, if they get one, we get one, I don't believe we're under-represented, I don't care what the numbers say, but I don't believe we're under-represented. If you're under-represented, then we're not doing our job. We don't need to have the government get any bigger. We're always on about the size of the public service and all the other increases in the government budget, and yet we sit here. The bottom line, Madam Chair, is I don't think we're under-represented.

I respect the fact that the commission went out there and they visited the communities. They lobbied harder in some communities than others. But I really don't believe we should even consider adding more seats. If they want to say well, we're going to take this to court because we're plus or minus 25 percent or whatever for the number, but the bottom line is we've got to realistic here and look at the overall numbers and look at the number of constituents we have in each riding and leave it at that. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. McLeod. General comments. Next I have Premier Handley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I also want to express my appreciation and respect for the work that the commission members did in making their recommendations.

Madam Chair, in looking at this issue I've talked to many of my constituents and I've also thought long and hard about this issue. There are three main issues that I took into consideration. First of all, how many people can we represent? I had to look at some of the provinces and the federal government, the size of constituencies, and I have to say that the number of people that each of us represent, whether it's in Yellowknife or in some of the smaller communities, is quite low compared to what you see across the country.

A second question is how do we achieve a balance and ensure that voters in any constituency in the Territories are fairly and equitably represented?

The third one, in my view, is cost.

Looking at the issue of balance, I think it's important that voters, constituents, no matter where they live, have fair representation. I recognize and I appreciate the challenges that MLAs who represent multiple communities have compared to those of us in Yellowknife, and I appreciate that the numbers in Yellowknife are probably higher than they are in the smaller communities. But I have to say that just adding more MLAs is not the only way of ensuring a balance in representation. I think if there's a problem with cost of travel, or time in travel and so on, then there are other ways of handling that. But there are ways of increasing the travel allowances for people who represent the smaller communities or a number of communities within their constituencies.

Looking at the number of people we can represent, as I say, it's low. I think we could theoretically represent many more than the two to three thousand people that most of us have.

My belief is that 19 MLAs can represent the Northwest Territories very well, but this isn't just a matter of numbers. I don't think we should be concerned about increasing the numbers simply because we want to avoid a court challenge. That's a wrong way of looking at it, from my view. We shouldn't be doing this just to stay out of court. If we're going to increase, then increase it because we genuinely believe we need more people in order to represent the constituents that we all have.

This comes to the issues of cost as being a main one for me. It costs a lot of money to add another one or two more MLAs, and I don't think it stops there. I don't think if we don't go status quo, we'll be looking at more than one, most likely; probably more than two additional MLAs. That costs money. Madam Chair, I can tell you that if that happens, then I suspect in the 16th Assembly there's going to be a move then to increase the number of people on Cabinet; more cost if we go that direction. Madam Chair, if we don't take the cost of government seriously in this House ourselves, then how can we criticize the government departments and the rest of government for growth? We're as guilty as anybody else is. So, Madam Chair, I have difficulty with the issue of cost.

Basically, my view is that 19 can represent very well, but if it's the will of the MLAs in here that we need more, then my position would be that we have to go to 21. We have to go to the report recommendations if it's more than the 19. I could not see increasing another one outside of a large centre like Yellowknife and then not doing anything in Yellowknife. I think that creates an imbalance and an unfairness that has already been tested. It's not out of fear of a court challenge, but it is because there was a lot of thought and work put into creating a balance and we should maintain that. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Next on the list for general comments I have Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I guess I can speak from some experience from around this issue as I was around when Nunavut was created, and our Assembly in the pre-Nunavut days was larger and went down by 10 Members. We, in this House, had 24 Members at one time representing Nunavut and the Northwest Territories for just over 60,000. When Nunavut was created, 10 Members left and we had 14. We governed with 14 until the next Assembly. A boundaries commission was established to go out and look at the seats. There were questions looked at. Ultimately, they came back with a recommendation of a couple of seats. That was voted down in this Assembly and a court challenge occurred, and that's what we find ourselves now operating with is that court challenge, because it has established the rules of 25 percent. That's the case we will use, because that's the case that was used in that particular outcome. Instead of going from two seats, we ended up with five seats. So we went from 14 to 19.

As my colleague Mr. McLeod had referenced, when you look at the numbers, take a step backwards and look at our numbers. When we went to the Northwest Territories and Nunavut went on its way, we were then down to just over 40,000 people. Forty thousand people and we then, faced with the adjustment of the court case, went to 19 Members. Today, we look at it, we're just about 43,000 people, just under 43,000 people with 19 Members. So realistically looking at the numbers, the Territories hasn't grown with any real significant numbers since we last increased our Members by five. I think that's something we have to look at.

I've heard comments around the table that this bill that's been presented by Mr. Pokiak, on behalf of the Board of Management, is status quo. Well, it is not status quo. It is in fact trying to deal with the issue of meeting the requirement that we are faced with as a Legislative Assembly, and that is meeting that 25 percent target. By redrawing the lines in our larger constituencies, we would come very close to those numbers if not on the mark; very close, which I think would protect ourselves in a more substantial way by doing what this bill requires of us. It's a rebalancing proposal, as I see it, that would redraw the maps of our constituencies to allow us to meet that target that has been established. I agree; we can't ignore it. So we have to make some movement to allow for that, for us to redraw the maps, but still leave our government at the existing size of 19 because I do believe that once we go to as we've seen and we have experience, if you adjust the seats and go to two, that has a domino effect, as my colleague from the Sahtu had mentioned. Then you have to look at the numbers again. That adds another seat and another constituency, redo the numbers again, and that's exactly where we found ourselves. When they redid the numbers for the two seats, Hay River had to be adjusted. When Hay River was adjusted, Inuvik's numbers were out. Inuvik had to be adjusted. When you looked at those numbers, Yellowknife had to get another seat. We'll find ourselves doing the same scenario in trying to meet that 25 percent target. So I think instead of 21, we could end up with 22 Members.

Again, I think as the people of the Territories spoke out on this, a large number of them spoke to the fact that they feel their government is of a large enough size. Believe me, when we went from 14 to 19, in my constituency we went back, I spoke against it, but still received a lot of flack about why did you grow government. Does it necessarily mean we have better services? Well, I think it's hard to deny that the larger centres, the regional centre, the capital, if we looked at the programs we provide to our constituents, the number of people drawing down those services come from the larger services by a vast majority. Whether it's student financial assistance, whether it's income support, housing dollars might be a little different in that area, it all depends on the type of program, but shear numbers in communities affect the scale of programs that are drawn down.

I'll use similar arguments that I did back in 1999 when we were affected by this, is that as an individual, and whether it be Inuvik, Hay River or Yellowknife, you can go to a government office and you can get services almost right on that day. You may have to make an appointment and come in two days later. In many of our small communities, you're not going to get that appointment because there is no office. You may have to go to the hamlet that provides it on a contract basis. So will this make that any better? Not necessarily, because again the level of services we'll provide to constituents is not necessarily going to change. The debate in this House will, guaranteed, and is that always a good thing? I think our residents out there are probably questioning that fact today.

We also have to look at what will the future of this government look like. There are many self-government tables in discussions at this point. The Tlicho has become another government in the Northwest Territories. It has been enacted and has come in force. They are now self-governing, they will draw down that authority over time. What will happen in that situation? We have Deline, a community self-government, nearing the AIP stage. At some point, will they come to this Assembly and question this leadership as to why it makes decisions, or will they be questioning their own leadership in their own communities? Then we have to ask again what does this government look like and do we build it up to such a capacity that it has to feed on itself because, as we know, whether it comes to programs and services or political leadership, when you add a seat or add a program, to try to take it away is very difficult. It’s easier to add than take away has been my experience. So I think we have to look at that scenario as we review this.

Needless to say, but I will anyway, I support the bill as it has come forward of rebalancing the seats, because I do believe that the 19 Members can represent the constituents of the Northwest Territories at a very adequate level. No matter if you add more Members to this Assembly, we are still going to be arguing about the fact of why we aren’t offering better programs, why we aren’t increasing programs to the elders or housing units and delivering the programs in a more effective way. The fact is we still won’t have any more money out of it just because we add more Members to this Assembly. That’s where we get into difficulty with our constituents, because they see needed money for programs and services being paid to ourselves. That’s not necessarily an easy defence when you go to your communities and they ask about the programs that they want in their communities.

So I support the bill that is being proposed of rebalancing the constituencies in the Northwest Territories and learning to live with that. As experience shows, things may change in the future but once you have an established seat, it’s hard to remove it unless you want to send the next boundaries commission out. That in itself still does not guarantee it will shrink.

I would support this bill as it’s been presented and hopefully as we look at this and take a step back and look at the big picture, as my colleague Mr. Robert McLeod stated, when you look at the size of the people of the territory and the size of this government since division, we have not grown significantly and we can still do the job that is requested of us. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Next I have Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Finally, I get to speak, Members.

---Laughter

Just reflecting upon Bill 14 that is before us maintaining the status quo and rebalancing, I have given it lots of thought and a lot of the recommendations that the commission reports, I am not convinced that they gave it more thought than just to write what they did. Basically, for me, when I look at the numbers, if I don’t look at the recommendations but I look at the numbers, the numbers do not say that we need extra seats. That is the way I see it. Unfortunately, the numbers do not say that we need extra seats. Members around this House are saying the opportunity is for Yellowknife to get more seats. As a community MLA, that is how I see it.

This spring, I had a great opportunity to tour Alaska. Our first stop was Juneau, which is the capital. There are 40,000 people there and they have been the capital for a very long time. The biggest city is Anchorage. My numbers might be off, but I think Anchorage is around 40,000 people. The debate has been on for some time to move the capital over to Anchorage. Very often, the people in Juneau and outside of Anchorage, they are all saying you can move the capital to Anchorage, our state politics, the politics that matters for the people, get involved in the city politics. That’s exactly the case that we have here. I find that often in this House, we get wrapped up in Yellowknife politics. The reason I see it so clearly is I get wrapped up in it and I get in the momentum and the swing of things. When I am all stressed out and we take a break, I go back to my riding and people really don’t care. What they do care about is the programs that they receive. That’s important. Why is that program cut? Why didn’t you tell us about it? Why didn’t you consult with us in this? It’s the day-to-day things that matter. As a Regular Member, I spoke lots about housing. That’s because that’s what people care about. It’s about roads, that’s what people care about. When it comes to talking about more governance, that’s not something we support. When we talk about something as mundane as name changes, they are saying don’t worry about that. Take care of the real needs of the people today.

Real needs!

So I like to get back to the report itself. It is an…(inaudible)…report. Don’t be surprised what our House does and doesn’t want to do. Just like for the first time we heard a nay in the House the other day. It’s not shocking to say no to a committee report. Assemblies, not only ours but throughout the world, do it all the time. They commission these huge reports and they don’t accept the recommendations. They do it all the time. It’s not that there is anything new here. We are not reinventing the wheel when we are presenting Bill 14, basically the status quo with a realignment.

I know that the honourable Tlicho Member and the Tlicho Government made a good case, a good presentation for better representation. I believe they will get it, but maybe not today. It’s got to be put off until the next time.

I concur; we are not under-represented. When I think about the court case and talking with former Members of that era, let’s say, what happened then is there were gross cases of under-representation, there were gross cases of very large constituencies and then the tension and the judge that made a decision for all those extra MLAs took all that into consideration. Today, like I said, the first thing I went to was the numbers. I don’t know how any court would rule against us saying that constitutionally people’s voices are not being heard. I do not believe that for a minute.

So with that, I am not convinced that the courts will tell us that we are under-represented. I am not convinced that the court will rule in the favour of more MLAs. I am not convinced that we need to improve our legislative numbers. With that, Madam Chair, I conclude my statements. I will be supporting Bill 14 as it is. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Next I have Mr. Michael McLeod.