Merci, Madme la Presidente. I move that Committee Motion 28319(2) be amended to read as follows: That this Assembly recommends that the Yellowknife Members of the Legislative Assembly be permitted to apply to the Board of Management to establish an office in Yellowknife outside the Legislative Assembly building as is the case with all nonYellowknife Members. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. To the motion. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. Yeah, I think the way that the motion had currently read was that it was a requirement that it be established, and it might require as much as $90,000. What this does is amend the Members' handbook, which currently reads, in section 114, and I'm just going quote this, "Members representing constituencies in Yellowknife are not entitled to a second constituency office in addition to the one provided in the Legislative Assembly building."
So with that current clause in the Members' handbook, there's a prohibition on Yellowknife MLAs having an office outside. So the purpose of this motion would be to change this to at least allow that as an option for future Yellowknife Members and that really the decision would be up to the Board of Management. And I think this is a better way to approach this, at least leave open that option for Yellowknife MLAs.
And I think really what this is about is making sure that people in Yellowknife have an opportunity to bring forward their concerns, not necessarily to the MLA in the Assembly but in other ways. So I am hoping that my colleagues from Yellowknife would support this to at least leave this open as an option for the future. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. To the amendment. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I support the idea of this motion or the amended motion. I wouldn't want to be forced to do something but I do think Members should be allowed to decide for themselves, and I take the point of my colleague that for some people this might be an intimidating building. I do find, though, that my constituents are kind of excited to come here generally and the parking is free, which helps. But I guess my only concern with this is that would this then become cost and money that comes out of our constituency budget, could then maybe be used in other areas whereas here, our constituency offices are provided free of charge. So that would just only be my concern is if there is sort of, any sort of not abuse of it, but where there's an unprecedented amount of constituency budget funding going to rental outside of this building that maybe isn't being utilized that much and maybe that money could be used better elsewhere. Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Just to clarify the out of Members who have offices outside of Yellowknife, it comes out of the ledge, it's not out of the constituency budget. So it's added to the legislative budget. So I'll come back to you. To the amendment. Member for Yellowknife South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I am in favour of the amendment. I was not in favour of an automatic or a presumed automatic incurring significant cost. It's not thus far been my experience that generally residents of Yellowknife South are struggling to find myself or my constituency assistant by virtue of having our office here or through all other manner of opportunity. But nonetheless, that just may be tradition and it not necessarily a reality. So certainly we'll take that back.
But I will just say, Madam Chair, in reviewing this proposed motion, both originally and the now amended one, I would just note for folks in Yellowknife that although the rules do say that we are not entitled to a second constituency office, the rules also imply that Ministers are not entitled to any office automatically. So there's a bit of a challenge with the rules. And I actually had some difficulty getting an office at all. And of course, I draw I try to draw a very strict line between the facilities and what I use to support my office as a Minister as opposed to not incurring or using any of those facilities to support my work as an MLA. So this does in that sense, I'm happy to now have this option because if that becomes a challenge again, it may be that I would be the first one in line to ensure that I have some office available to me. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. To the amendment. Member for Range Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I also understand the intent of this one; however, as stated before, we are in a time of huge inflation and people are struggling and we have to be careful with taxpayer dollars, and I just don't think this is the time to be bringing this forward. We do have offices in this Assembly and this would cost tax if it was approved, would cost taxpayers extra money. And so I cannot, in conscious, support this motion at this time. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. To the amendment, I do think the amendment does improve on the previous recommendation. Once again, the previous recommendation or the main motion is very prescriptive. It's the Assembly encroaching on how Members run their offices. It's saying you will share an office in a central location. We've already seen a bit of that encroachment occur today, and so I'm happy that actually the Member reversed course and went a different direction on this one because I think it is an improvement.
I do have an office downtown in Hay River, a constituency office. I made sure that I had one that was easily accessible, so it's ground level. There's no barriers. It's in a public place. So people can see it and they can come by. People don't always want to seek out their MLAs. Sometimes they're walking by and they say, I'll just pop in. And that's when you can have some good conversations. You hear about things you might not otherwise, and I think that's important. So I don't really have an issue with the motion.
My only issue is this: You know, there have been other opportunities where we could discuss this and this could have been raised. So I don't know how much this would cost. I don't know what budget implications are. I don't know if there's going to be any assessment of whether or not people are ever in their offices. Maybe someone rents an office and the CA and the MLA are here all the time in the Legislative Assembly, and that office is vacant.
So if this does you know, if we do approve this recommendation, there's going to need to be guidelines developed regarding how BOM approves places. We need to determine whether or not it's actually worth it in the long run. So the idea itself is not a bad starting point but I think we need to put some meat on the bones. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member for Hay River North. To the amendment? Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Actually I was just going to clarify that it wasn't clear to me that this meant that the money would not be coming from our constituency budgets rather from the Legislative Assembly. So then, yes, in both matters, I don't support it for the reasons mentioned by other MLAs. Thank you.
Thank you. To the amendment? Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess, I look at this and I listen to the discussion and I think about the people out there that will probably never come to this building, don't feel welcome in this building and, you know, will probably never talk to some of you as MLAs here. And, you know, I guess coming from Hay River, coming from a you know, a community again, my office is on main street. I get people in there that again, that walk by and just come in. And I probably get, you know, 20, 25 people a day coming through there. Some of them just to drink coffee and other ones to actually you know, with issues. And you've got people that are, you know, in suits. You've got people that are that are on the street. And I think that it's important that we don't forget that we're here to represent everybody, like all our constituents, not just some of them. So I guess that's my big thing is that I'm concerned is that, you know, I just want to make sure that, you know, everybody's looked after and this is an opportunity to, you know, to consider it. And when it comes down to financial costs, I would hope that we would find some, you know, some financial support outside the you know, the monies allotted to the Yellowknife MLAs to fund something like this. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. To the amendment?
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour of the amendment? All those opposed? The motion is carried.
---Carried
To the main motion as amended, all those in favour? Yes, all those in favour to the main motion amended? All those in favour? All those opposed? Abstentions? Motion is carried.
Carried
Member for Hay River South.
