Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Under the existing Plebiscite Act, only people who have resided in the Northwest Territories for a period of at least three years are eligible to vote. If Members wish to take advantage of the existing enumeration process, that section would have to be changed in order to take advantage of the enumeration that is presently ongoing.

The second area where questions would certainly arise is in the area of inmate voting. The Elections Act was recently amended to permit inmates serving sentences of less than two years to vote. There was no commensurate amendment to the Plebiscite Act. The existing Plebiscite Act prohibits all inmates, regardless of sentence, from voting. If Members wish to have a plebiscite, the Assembly may wish to consider whether they wish to amend the Plebiscite Act to allow inmates to vote.

The Elections Act was amended, as Members are aware, to allow inmates to vote as a result of the Charter challenges. The Charter does guarantee the fight to vote in an election. There is no similar guarantee of the right to vote in a plebiscite, so there may be policy issues that arise as to whether the right to vote should, in fact, be extended to inmates for plebiscites.

We don't have the same Charter constraints that governed the deliberations of the amendments under the Elections Act. But those are certainly two areas of amendments that would have to be looked at if Members wished a plebiscite to be held at the same time as an election, using the identical enumeration list. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.