Mr. Chairman, anybody in a riding which is affected by what they perceive as an unequal or an unfair distribution would have the right to commence court action. As long as they have an interest in the subject matter, a person would be entitled to commence court action. It could be any voter in a riding in which the voter feels that their vote has been unduly diluted or that they do not have effective representation. They would launch a court challenge and they would have to serve the Attorney General of Canada and the Northwest Territories. They would simply argue in court that the existing electoral boundaries are unconstitutional and violates section 3. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, it is difficult to say with any certainty how long a court action would take. A court action could be launched relatively quickly, however, the length of time that it would take the court to consider the matter would be very dependent on the types of arguments that were made in court. For example, under section 3 of the Charter it enshrines the right to effective representation and, as I have indicated, that does not always mean one citizen, one vote. There can be times when effective representation means that one constituency has to be bigger or larger than another because of the people who live in that constituency, or the distance away from another community, or the transportation links.

Anytime that you have an argument where you are justifying an unequal division or an unequal representation in the Assembly, it would be the obligation of the government to defend that unequal representation. That means the government might have to call evidence as to why they chose to have one constituency to be larger or smaller than another constituency. Anytime you get into calling evidence, you could be looking at a lengthy period of time. In other words, if a legal argument could probably be dealt with relatively quickly and within a matter of months, and hopefully, a few months at that, but if there were evidence called to justify the existing boundaries, that could prolong the process and take longer than a few months to deal with.

If that is the case, Mr. Chairman, there could be a problem in the sense that the present Elections Act, does provide that, knowing then, that to any provision regarding electoral boundaries is effective unless it is made six months before a general election is held. The exception to that is, if the Chief Electoral Officer agrees with the amendment and publishes a notice in the Gazette. The purpose behind that section is to ensure that the Chief Electoral Officer has the time, adequate time, to deal with amendments to electoral boundaries when he or she is running an election. There is this six-month time frame that is contained within the legislation and that six-month time frame can be waived, but there are still very practical considerations to running an election and there is the desirability to having voter enumeration take place in advance of an election, which our act provides for, to having electoral maps printed up, to doing a lot of advance preparation for an election. If we were to possibly get an adverse court decision and had to perhaps, change our boundaries, we would be running into the period of time in which it would be desirable to be preparing for an election, rather than changing the boundaries. The short answer is, it could take a few months. The longer answer is, depending upon the evidence, it could take quite a long time and that could interfere with the smooth running of the next election, Mr. Chairman.

Agreed.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For all intents and purposes, it is reasonable to say that the Report of the

Electoral Boundaries Commission was a unanimous report with regard to the number of Members they were recommending to this legislature. I admit there was a minority report submitted with that document, but with regard to how the area should be split up and the number of members, the report was unanimous. I listened to the law clerk explain how a challenge would be handled and I would refer back to a comment I made in my opening statement that was made by Madam Justice McLauchlin, the statement, and I quote is, "The courts ought not to interfere unless it appears that reasonable persons applying the appropriate principles could not have set the electoral boundaries as they exist." My question to the law clerk is, what did this government, as you referred to having to defend a legislation, would this government have to make a case that the individuals that were members of the Boundaries Commission, in fact, were not reasonable persons and that they did not apply appropriate principles? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the government would not be required to defend the reasonableness of the commissioners who drafted the report. What they would be required to defend in court would be the reasonableness of any electoral boundaries that are chosen by this Assembly. If, for example, the existing electoral boundaries were to remain the same, then the government would have to say, a reasonable person, a reasonable man or woman on the street, would think that it is important that this community have its own MLA, as in contrast with sharing with another community.

What the court would be looking at is not the reasonableness of the commissioners who made the recommendations, but they would be looking at whether your average person thinks that is a departure from one person, one vote can be justified in these circumstances and based on these facts. The onus would be on the government to justify any departure from the general principle, one person, one vote. It would be up to the government to say, this is why we did this in this community. This is why we decided to reject this recommendation, this is why we decided not to split into two. The onus is on the government to say that there are factors here that we considered to justify a departure of what might be considered the norm. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have seen demonstrated a number of times a reasonableness that does exist in this House. On a number of occasions I would on the premise that reasonableness will prevail and that the boundaries commission will be accepted. A question from that perspective would be, how successful would a challenge be to the present make-up of the Legislative Assembly when, in section 3, an individual or a person looks at the facts and some of the numbers that we deal with in the Legislative Assembly where, the smallest riding in the present Assembly has approximately 800 residents. The largest riding has approximately 7,000. With regard to a challenge, how successful would something like that be, or is it the complete picture that is looked at? How successful and how fair would the court look at that type of disparity in representation for individuals? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, as you pointed out, it is difficult to tell what would happen in the event of a court challenge being launched. There has been wide reference to this simple rule of thumb of plus or minus 25 percent. Some cases have suggested you can have deviations within constituency boundaries of up to plus or minus 25 percent in order to accommodate community interests, geography, minority representation and other factors, the list of which is not closed. We do not know if a court would apply that same rule of thumb to the Northwest Territories.

I have often heard in this House, Members have said the Northwest Territories has uniqueness apart from the rest of Canada and we live in a unique territory. I cannot say with any degree of certainty that the court would apply that rule of thumb that has been applied in other jurisdictions to appropriate electoral boundaries. What I can say is, the case law very clearly states it would be up to the government to justify any departure from the norm. If there were significant departures from the norm, and as Mr. Henry has pointed out some of the significant departures, the onus is very much on the government to justify why there is such a significant deviation in the riding size in the Northwest Territories. As to success, I can not preempt the court, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just ask a final question. Hopefully it will be within the bounds you have set. Does the Supreme Court have a rating as to cases they will hear? Do they only hear cases that affect the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? Do they rate in order of priority and

sort of the timing that may be required by circumstances such as an election? Do they rate cases they will hear? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories would hear any matter that was properly brought before it by a voter or a person who was interested in this issue. They may give it short shrift and dismiss it or they could take a long time to consider it, but they would certainly hear any matter brought before it. In terms of the timing, I have found, when necessary, the Supreme Court will often go to great extent to try to accommodate matters felt to be somewhat pressing, and of great public interest and urgency, to have them resolved quickly. They will often make every effort to accommodate council and to accommodate the needs of various litigants to have matters resolved quickly and expeditiously.

With respect to any appeal, however, flowing from a decision of the Supreme Court, there would be an automatic right-of-appeal to the NWT Court of Appeal. There is no automatic right-of-appeal from the NWT Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, which means the court gets to pick and choose which cases they will hear. The Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories will hear any case that is properly put before it, I believe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.