Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, colleagues, it was my great honour to travel last week and early this week with the Premier and my colleague from Kam Lake to the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik, Iceland. In an increasingly troubled world, Canada, and in particular Canada's North and its Indigenous people, need to work hard to strengthen our international bonds with the nations of the circumpolar world.
I had the opportunity to sit on a panel examining the potential benefits of public/private partnerships that include Indigenous governments and organizations and came away with a new and better appreciation of the full participation of our people in the modern economy.
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Hay River South who, as deputy chair of Caucus, introduced motions last night in Committee of the Whole to implement the recommendations of two independent Commissions one to review MLA compensation and the other to recommend new electoral boundaries in the upcoming general election.
With less than a year remaining until the next election, it is critical that we clarify the size of this House and its boundaries at the earliest opportunity. Residents, potential candidates, and our election management bodies need to know what the landscape looks like to make informed decisions in the run up to next October. I don't intend to reflect on the decision that was made in the Committee of the Whole last night to reject the recommendation of the 2021 Electoral Boundaries Commission, but as Caucus chair I think it is crucial that the public understands what that decision meant and could mean.
Had the motion carried, I would have introduced legislation next week to establish new electoral boundaries for the 2023 election. As it stands now, the status quo will remain. That leaves us with a number of ridings, particularly Yellowknife North and Monfwi, that are unacceptably larger than the average riding size. It remains to be seen whether this will result in a legal challenge. But as we all know, the boundaries have been challenged twice before.
In 2015, the House accepted the recommendations of the independent Electoral Boundaries Commission, and a challenge from the City of Yellowknife for more seats was unsuccessful; however, in 1998, in the infamous Friends of Democracy case, the Assembly, like last night, rejected the recommendations of the independent Commission. This successful court challenge is why the number of MLAs from Inuvik and Hay River increased from one to two and why the number of MLAs from Yellowknife increased from four to seven.
Electoral boundaries are very political and challenging to get just right. It's not just about the arithmetic. It's about how we organize our public government politically and constitutionally. Yes, Yellowknife has roughly half the population of the NWT and less than half the number of seats in this House. But that doesn't mean Yellowknife's underrepresented in our government or at a disadvantage compared to the rest of the NWT. Far from it. Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to finish my statement.
Unanimous consent granted
Mr. Speaker, the independent Commission's report wasn't perfect. It proposed a new and somewhat clever way to avoid adding seats to our legislature and avoiding increasing the numerical influence of Yellowknife Members in this House. In my view, the recommendation of the best possible outcome for small communities in the NWT who are always struggling for greater influence in the halls of government. Some may think that last night's vote was the end of the matter for another eight years. Mr. Speaker, I'd be surprised if that was the case.
Last night's decision has effectively turned this matter, a very political matter, over to the courts to decide for us. So far history has shown that the courts tend to defer to the Legislative Assembly when it follows the advice of an independent commission chaired, by the way, by a sitting or retired Supreme Court judge. History also has shown that results can be very unpredictable when we ignore that advice and let the courts decide for us.
I fear that we may find ourselves scrambling to implement courtordered boundaries in the weeks and months leading up to the next election; boundaries that could very well see more seats added to this House and more seats for Yellowknife, Mr. Speaker. I hope that I'm wrong on that but in this uncertain world, political instability can spring up anywhere. As leaders, we need to see both the shortterm and longterm implications of our decisions we make in this House and do our best not to sleepwalk into constitutional issues of our own making. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Thebacha. Members' statements. Member for Nunakput.
