Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Unless there is an amendment to the NWT Act I am not aware of, the NWT Act provides that every Assembly shall continue for four years from the date of return of the writs, for a general election, and no longer. That is unlike the provisions in the Nunavut Act, which allow the Nunavut Assembly to continue for a period of up to five years. That is very much the Canadian norm in legislatures. We still have the provisions that say we shall continue for four years and no longer. There could be some real chaos if a decision came down very close to the end of this 13th Assembly and there was insufficient time to meet and address the consequences of the decision. It appears there is no statutory framework, Mr. Chairman, to permit an extension. The court would very much, if they were to delay the election, be relying on non-statutory, non-legislative powers and their own inherent jurisdiction. I am not quite sure they would have that inherent jurisdiction to do so. It would be a tricky issue, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, there are a number of cases which have dealt with challenges to electoral boundaries in other jurisdictions. In those cases, some of them have made it to court by way of reference from the government seeking to know if their boundaries are appropriate. Other cases have made it to the courts as a result of individual voters bringing cases to the court.

Generally speaking, in the cases that have considered the issue of electoral boundaries, the courts have permitted the legislation to remain in force even where they have found it to violate the right to effective representation. They have allowed the legislature to keep the existing electoral boundaries for a period of time, pending the legislature convening to change those electoral boundaries. In some cases, the courts have been asked to give time deadlines to a legislature, a time frame in which they must make the necessary changes to their boundaries. The courts have, generally speaking, declined to issue those types of orders saying we expect a legislature would do what is right and what is constitutional. We are not going to say they must do that within a certain time frame.

Those are the comments in the few cases dealing with boundaries that have made it to Appellate Courts in this country. The concern, however, would be how long a court would give this legislature to remedy any problem, if a problem where found. Would they give this legislature four years to remedy a problem or would they say to this legislature, we expect that you will make changes within a reasonable time period and conduct a new election. That is the real issue. Would the courts basically give this legislature another full session? That is a difficult one to predict, Mr. Chairman.

Precisely this very debate is occurring, and if the court were, in its wisdom, to decide that existing electoral boundaries were unconstitutional, they might not be inclined to give four years to remedy that problem. There are a lot of assumptions, but the difficulty, of course, would be that the court would have full knowledge of this debate, would have knowledge of the Boundaries Commission Reports and some of the submissions that went on. They might not permit boundaries they feel are unconstitutional to stay in place pending another general election. Again, Mr. Chairman, I cannot predict the future and I cannot predict how a court would react.

We do have a substantial body of case law out there which alerts legislators to the factors they have to take into consideration. We do have the report of the commission which has indicated it has taken those factors into consideration.

The court may view that as sufficient warning to a legislature and not give a long grace period to remedy a problem in light of the past debate on this issue in this House and in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Most of my questions have been answered. However, I just wanted to clarify, the law clerk had indicated that the government would have to justify every significant departure, was that correct?

That is correct, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In other words, it would not only look at the Yellowknife seats, it would look at, for instance, Tu Nedhe, which is 70 percent less than the norm with two communities that have to be travelled to by air. Perhaps Deh Cho, as well, which has a few communities which are all accessible by road, that is 63 percent under the norm as well. Would that be a fair assessment? They would have to look at those as well?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In determining whether the population in one constituency was reasonable or could be justified, a court would almost certainly look of the makeup in other ridings and compare and comment on the makeup in other ridings. In other words, they could not, I suggest, rule on an issue affecting Yellowknife South without considering other ridings in the Northwest Territories, the population in those other ridings, and the reasons in which other ridings might be a different size. It would be very difficult to consider one riding in isolation of all of the ridings when addressing the issue of whether the boundaries in one riding are appropriate or fair. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know we have to rely on previous cases and I am not sure how specific they were. Would they indicate the ridings that have to be adjusted? For instance, if they found that there was an abnormality, could they indicate, for instance, the Tu Nedhe and Deh Cho would be too small and they would have to be changed, as well as perhaps, the Yellowknife ridings, if they found that these were out of line?

Mr. Chairman. I do not

know what type of order a court would give specifically. In other words, I do not know if a court would, say in dealing with an application involving Yellowknife, that you have to adjust another riding. The difficulty that a court would be faced with is that the court itself is not going to adjust the ridings. They are going to give guidance and you cannot deal with one riding in Yellowknife without affecting other ridings. The court would most likely make comment on the overall population makeup of the ridings and remit the matter back to the legislature for consideration if it felt that it were a problem.

I do not know if they would specifically order that other ridings be dealt with, but they may well comment on the population makeup of other ridings other than the specific one that they are dealing with. They would most likely send the entire matter back to the legislature for legislation if it felt that there were a problem with the boundaries. In other words, they would not do the actual boundary change themselves. They would send it back to this legislature.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I have it correctly, they would comment on certain abnormalities and then, they would give general parameters within which they would expect the Legislative Assembly to compile it? Is that correct?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I cannot predict what would be in the decision, but that is what I would expect a court would do, would be to provide guidance and direction to the legislature in the event that it felt there were a problem with the boundaries, so we would have some assistance in debating this issue. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.