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? That is nothing. Well, people might argue that with me, but I think it’s a chance for us to show respect.
If we want to give up this opportunity to do the right thing today, let me warn you of where we’re going, because I’ve played in this movie before. Like I said, I sat in this House and had a chance to give Yellowknife one seat, and I was politically pressured not to do it by the leaders of the day and I voted with them. The Friends of Democracy took it to court. We didn’t just get one new MLA; we got three new MLAs. Now, if you want to take it out of our hands and take it to the courts, I guess we won’t have any control over what the outcome is. We won’t be driving the agenda when it goes to the courts.
I think it’s a chance for us to put our money where our mouth is, show some respect to language, cultural, Aboriginal groups here today, and add two more seats to this Legislature. You can say, well, how many people will tell you that we should add more MLAs. Well, that’s not really the germane question in this discussion. This is a debate today. This is actually really good. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a good debate in this House and it’s a very good debate.
But I just want to say that we are a diverse and unique territory and we need to recognize that diversity and that uniqueness by showing respect to our partner governments and our constituencies. We always stand up in this House and we talk about the richness of our territory with our culture, our language and our 11 official languages. We talk about that. We brag about that. We pay it respect. Yet, today we have a chance to, like I said, put something behind those words, and I think that we should be doing it. If we do hand this off to the courts to decide, I would like a recorded vote on this. I’d like a recorded vote because the people who do not vote for the 21 Members and vote for the 19 Members, after we see where the dust settles on this, I want everybody to know exactly who we are talking about.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I think I heard clearly the many, many reasons to keep 19 and not to move on to 21, but I heard clearly, as well, I think Members want a recorded vote, so I’ll certainly ask the chair for that.
Mr. Menicoche, Mr. Blake, Mr. Abernethy, Mr. Miltenberger, Mr. McLeod – Yellowknife South, Mr. Ramsay, Mr. McLeod – Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. Bouchard, Mr. Hawkins, Mr. Moses.
All those opposed to the motion, please stand.
Mr. Beaulieu, Mr. Lafferty, Mr. Dolynny, Mr. Nadli, Ms. Bisaro, Mr. Bromley, Mr. Yakeleya.
All those abstaining? All those abstaining from voting on the motion, zero; all those in favour of the motion was 10; all those opposed to the motion is seven. The motion is carried.
---Carried
Minister R.C. McLeod, please.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The debate that we’ve had this afternoon has been great and it’s one of the benefits of consensus government to have debates such as this and then we move on from there.
I have a motion that I would like to move.
