Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Kitikmeot that Bill 20, An Act to Amend the Property Assessment and Taxation Act be read for the second time, Mr. Speaker.

This bill amends the Act to allow a taxing authority without a court order to sell a taxable property that includes a parcel of land or lease hold interest in municipal land for the purpose of recovering the arrears of property taxes on the property. The bill sets out the procedural steps that a taxing authority must take before and after the sale of a taxable property. Some of these involve preparing a tax arrears list and giving notice of the inclusion of the taxable property on that list and the impending and subsequent sale of the property. The bill also provides the assessed owner of the taxable property with the right to redeem it after its sale and allows interested persons to challenge the sale in court. In addition the bill provides for the transfer of titles to a taxable properly from the assessed owner, the purchaser and with some exceptions distinguishes the right interest of other persons in the taxable property that existed or arose prior to the transfer. Finally, the bill provides for the disposition of the proceeds of a sale of a taxable property including the payment in court for distributions to claimant of any surplus receipts in excess of $1,000. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. The motion is in order. To the principle of the bill. Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Motion is carried. Bill 20 has had second reading and accordingly the bill stands referred to the committee. Item 19, consideration in committee of the whole of bills and other matters: Tabled Document 93-t3(4), Bill 3, Bill 4, Bill 5, Bill 6 and Bill 19, with Mr. Steen in the chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It would be my suggestion that the committee of the whole deal with the Report of the Nunavut Electoral Boundaries Commission.

Agreed.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Boundaries Commission first of all, I would like to begin by saying that the Report of the Nunavut Electoral Boundaries Commission was a very good piece of work. They spent a lot of time on it. They had an opportunity to travel around Nunavut to visit the communities and to get the communities' input into the constituencies that will be in place as recommended by the Commission by April 1, 1999 when Nunavut comes into play.

Mr. Chairman, the concern I have is that indeed this House directed that Commission to look at 20 to 22 ridings and they did come up with a Model C which is 17 constituencies. The costs for an extra three members in Model C which gives us 17 now in Model B which was 20 is about $650.000. My concern here is what we have demonstrated over the past year and a half at this House where you have 24 Members, you have eight put into Cabinet and you end up with 12, 15 Ordinary Members. With the 17 member constituency, if you had a smaller Cabinet, you would still have smaller representation on the side of the Ordinary Members' Caucus to do your committee work, for example, and other things. Right now, we sometimes have problems in trying to get a quorum. With a 17 Member constituencies Model C, my concern would be indeed that you would have a bigger problem.

The other concern I have is with the emphasis on representation by population and description. In the Model C arrangement, we have 17 and we are trying to use a percentage of deviation average. For example, the deviation average goes from minus 5 percent in Baker Lake to over 41 percent in Rankin Inlet. That is the concern. You also may note, Mr. Chairman, that indeed when the Commission was struck, they were given directions from this House and they came back with a different plan. That in itself was not a concern to the point that it would flaw the report because the report is very good.

Model B which gives you 20 single Member constituencies would add three extra MLAs. There is a concern, for example, that Rankin Inlet would get two MLAs in that case and Iqaluit would get three. There is some concern that the power base could be shared between those communities. But as demonstrated, Mr. Chairman, over the past x number of years in the Northwest Territories and indeed here in the 13th Assembly, that has not occurred. For example, you have four Members from Yellowknife in this Assembly. You only have one of those Members in Cabinet. You have two Members living in Rankin Inlet representing this Cabinet, but you only have one seat there. Just on the basis of having three seats does not give the elected official any more power or representation within Cabinet. That has been demonstrated through the years in the territorial Legislature. I do not think that is an argument.

The other argument that I would present to you, Mr. Chairman, is the argument on the voting population. In the election of November, 1995, there were 1,200 and some odd people on the enumeration list as voters in Iqaluit. Indeed, over 1,300 people voted because the enumeration list was flawed. In actuality, Mr. Chairman, in the town election that is occurring this month, there is 1,922 voters on that list, an increase of over 600. That has not been taken into account anywhere in the Commission's report. Also, based on Iqaluit being the capital as an example, more people will be moving there. They were projecting a growth in Iqaluit to be anywhere between 25 to 30 percent over the next couple of years. After saying that, it is good to see that communities like Clyde River and Broughton Island will be grouped together as opposed to being separated or amalgamated into a smaller constituency.

I think, Mr. Chairman, that after going through the report at some detail after re-evaluating my written submission to the Boundaries Commission, which I asked for 20 members and given the seat breakdown based not only on the actual population but the voting age population, indeed Model B to me seemed to be the best model because it gives you the opportunity to have fewer representation based on population but also based on representation by the number. I believe that many other Members agree with Option C, but I do not think that covers the area of population growth and so on. To save this government some money and the Nunavut government, I would say to you, Mr. Chairman, based on the population projections alone that we will have to have another Electoral Boundaries Commission within two to three years to re-draw the boundaries again because of the increased population loads. Those, Mr. Chairman, are my opening comments on the Nunavut Electoral Boundaries Commission.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we as a Legislature, appointed the Nunavut Electoral Boundaries Commission on March 7, 1997. Mr. Chairman, because we are the government of the day, we are given the task of appointing an Electoral Boundaries Commission in the Nunavut area to oversee or to consult with the people of Nunavut. Mr. Chairman, if we have to try and please every person and follow the wish of every community, we would see that every community is a riding on its own. It is very difficult to please everyone. For that reason, not every community, not every MLA and not every region will be happy with the decision we are about to make today or in the next session day, that is Monday. We are not able to conclude the item on the table. Mr. Chairman, I personally want to commend the Nunavut Electoral Boundary for doing a job that not many of us would be pleased to do, but it has to be done.

Mr. Chairman. the concern from the Kitikmeot leadership forum which I attended about three or four days ago was that the ceiling was unfortunate. The commission that was given the task of consulting with the people and making recommendations to the House of how many ridings, the name of ridings and so on that would be in Nunavut has only had three members. One chairman and two respected members from two different regions, one from Baffin and the other from Keewatin. The concern of the Kitikmeot leadership forum was that there was no membership from the Kitikmeot region. Therefore, the Kitikmeot leadership felt that some of its concerns were not addressed in the report, but I have told the Kitikmeot leadership that every community that was visited was given the same opportunity to have an input into the report of the Nunavut Electoral Boundaries. I told the Kitikmeot leadership that my input into the report was by no means lesser or bigger than theirs. I think as directed by the government, the Electoral Boundaries Commission took every effort given the area and given the elements. They made every effort to visit every community in the Nunavut area.

Mr. Chairman, the Nunavut government to be will have the power, the mandate and legislative power to make changes to the structure of Nunavut once that government is given the mandate to run in the Nunavut area. What we are doing now I do not believe is going to be there forever. I believe that because we happen to be the government of today in a transition before the division, that we were given the task as I indicated earlier to either approve, reject or amend the Report of the Nunavut Electoral Boundary Commission. I believe that in order to show that we respect the decision that we have taken by appointing the Commission, I have just come to full content. I have no problem, but there are some of the things that I would have wanted to see changed or be different but since we cannot, Mr. Chairman, afford to have a different riding in every community, I can live with the report itself although there will be some motions. I will make a motion later on. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will follow the procedure you laid out earlier and that is to save debates on motion until after general comments. I do have a few opening comments. Firstly, I have been very interested right from the beginning and right from before our election

even on the Nunavut Electoral Boundaries Commission. I believe that during the last Boundaries Commission, Baffin South did not, for one reason or another, have its fair say. Therefore, did not receive due consideration of its concerns. Right from the beginning I made it a point to make sure that when this Boundaries Commission came around and gave its report that I would make the concerns known. I have a lot of respect and appreciation for Mr. Richard, Ms. Kusugak, and Mr. Allooloo in the work that they did and their abilities. I appreciate the fact that they made considerable effort in trying to communicate their job to the public. I understand that they did 17 public hearings in a short period of time.

To tell you the truth, we did not give them a lot of time. I applaud them very much for going, I guess, a little further than many people expected them to by recommending 17 seats for Nunavut compared to 20 to 22 which had been suggested earlier. In the public presentation that I made to the commission, I certainly argued for the 17 or so seats but lesser than 20 to 22. As I understand it, it was a common theme in every community that they went to. That the cost of running the Legislative Assembly and how much money the public is willing to pay for politicians, basically is limited. I certainly agree with many of the comments that were made that in the north we are likely over governed. We have basically too many committees, too many politicians, and this is certainly a balance between making sure that there is sufficient number of MLAs that would be in Cabinet and sufficient number of MLAs outside of Cabinet to keep that Cabinet accountable. So, having suggested the 17 along with many, many others, I thank them for that recommendation.

I also realize that in recommending 17 seats there was a number of limitations on how they would divide up the seats. One of my big concerns and one of my missions in my MLA life was to try to get a seat for Sanikiluaq because it was an election issue. It has always been an issue since Sanikiluaq was put in Baffin South. I will talk about that a bit more later on. I will talk about the cost, the distance and the concerns I have on that. I see my time is up, Mr. Chairman. So, once I get into the motions, I will say more and I certainly hope that my colleagues will support the wishes of the community of Sanikiluaq in getting its own seat for that community.

Thank you. I will be brief in my comments. I too have followed the Electoral Boundaries Commission's work. I was present when they made the presentation in Arviat. I also made written submissions as to the wishes of the Kivallivik people. I think that the work that has been done here and the effort is tremendous. They have done an excellent job. The various scenarios that they proposed, a lot of them, most of them have merit. As the commission recommended Adoption C to be the fairest and more suitable, that is the option that I also agreed to and support. This option would see Baker Lake with their own Member and also Arviat with their own Member. In the case of Arviat, we are approaching 1,700 people. It is the fastest growing community in the Northwest Territories, the fastest growing community in Canada with an average of 60 babies a year being born. Unfortunately, on the other side of that, we also have the highest unemployment with 71 percent There is a distinct need to have a single Member for Arviat and Baker Lake. That is the wish of the people. As I said, I do support the option that the commission has presented and there are amendments that are ahead of us that we will be reviewing. I have some serious difficulties with one of these amendments that would see the grouping of the communities change. When I agreed to Option C, I agreed to a Member being appointed for or being allowed for Arviat and one for Baker Lake. The amendments that are being put forth, which I was only aware of this morning, change that drastically. It would see Arviat being grouped with another community. I have not had the opportunity except for a five-minute phone call this morning to advice the hamlet as to this sudden change.

It was not something that I was party to or consulted on. They were, to say the least, shocked, upset and certainly will not be supporting this change, I think in all fairness when the amendment is brought forward later on, I will be asking for it to be deferred. I have not had proper time to discuss the issue with my community and the other effected community. To my knowledge, I am not sure if they were consulted and I think more time is required on this. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman. I too would like to recognize the work of the Electoral Boundaries Commission members, the extensive public consultations that they undertook and the recommendations from the report after having public input from the communities and from written submissions that they took in. I think I myself had written in a submission to them and recommended a smaller than the 20 to 22 Member constituencies that they were given the mandate to look at, I am glad to say that other members of the public also expressed concern about the size of a Nunavut Legislature of 20 to 22 Members, possibly being excessive and the Boundaries Commission recognizing that and coming back with the proposal, a recommendation in one of their models for a 17 Member Nunavut Legislature which I support. The one issue I do have with the recommendation is more specific to my own constituency of Kitikmeot where they have made a recommendation that the smaller communities of Umingmaktok and Bathurst Inlet be placed in the Kugluktuk constituency. I will be putting forward a motion to amend that, Mr. Chairman, at the appropriate time to have those two communities moved back in with Cambridge Bay and at the time of the motion, I will speak to the reasons why I would ask Members to support that, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As Members who have spoken in the general comments of the report of the Nunavut Electoral Boundaries Commission, I am sure there was indication significant that most Members who have spoken support the Model C. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, earlier I commented on my reservations with this motion going with Option C, but in consultation with my community and following on the consultation reports that were brought forward, indeed, the community requested at least two seats. Although that would not be my preferred option, I will be supporting Option number C.

--Bravo