Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have heard many comments yesterday and today. We have heard that this is not a singular event debate on the Electoral Boundaries Commission Report that is an ongoing process. Indeed, Mr. Chairman, we started out by selecting a commission who the people seated here debating the virtues of the report, are the same people who thought were the best people to sit on that commission. We value their judgement that they are wise enough to be chosen to this commission. I made a representation to the commission, I said that the Yellowknife North riding should be the smallest riding in the Yellowknife area. I also said that there should be at least 17 seats in the House. Mr. Dent has already indicated that it would be very difficult to function with only 14 seats, I had indicated that as well. I will not go into that now.

Mr. Chairman, I wanted to indicate that the report came back and the main recommendation was that there should be two seats for the Yellowknife area. There was differing opinion on the sizes of the constituencies, but the main recommendation was that there should be two more seats. We are now hearing in this House that there should be, from some Members, that there should be no more seats for the Yellowknife area. Mr. Chairman, why is it that when people are chosen to sit on a commission, they are the wisest people and the best people to sit on that commission, but when the report comes back and is against a person's personal bias, those people are no longer the wisest people or best people for that commission. We throw that report out the window.

Mr. Chairman, yesterday, the Member for Yellowknife South indicated that in the Saskatchewan Electoral Boundaries Report, Madame Justice MacLaughlin had indicated that court should only interfere if a reasonable person who would not have set electoral boundaries as they exist. I would just like to look at a couple of current constituencies. The constituency of Nahendeh has 2,132 people. It has six communities. Two of them are accessible by road and four of them only by plane. The constituency of Tu Nedhe has 842 people. It only has two communities and they are accessible only by plane. Now what reasonable person would agree that this is fair or that each of the 7,000 constituents living in Yellowknife South has the same influence over government as each of the 842 people living in Tu Nedhe?

Yesterday, the law clerk indicated that if there is a court challenge, not only the Yellowknife ridings would be looked at. They would also look at all of the other constituencies and at the abnormalities. They would wonder why Tu Nedhe is so small in comparison to Nahendeh, which has many more communities. This Legislature would have to address each riding and rationalize why some are so small. Mr. Chairman, we are not asking to put Tu Nedhe together with Deh Cho to make a constituency that is still less than one third the size of the Yellowknife South riding. However, if we do go to court this might happen.

Mr. Chairman, we have heard that the Aboriginal Summit has recommended to us, in fact demanded, that there be no Boundaries Commission. Wait for self-government. Mr. Chairman, two communities that I represent, N'dilo and Detah, are part of the Aboriginal Summit. The people in Mr. Steen's area are Inuvialuit. They are part of the Aboriginal Summit. Both these areas asked for better representation. They wanted seats.

Another thing is that we do not know how long we have to wait for self-government. We have heard today that it could be ten years. If we look at the land claims process that has been going for over 25 years, I think that ten years might be a conservative estimate. We have also heard in this House that through the self-government negotiations, we are going to be devolving things like programs and services, huge amounts of money to the aboriginal governments. We have heard that we cannot predict what government will look like once those negotiations are finished. Mr. Chairman, one thing we can predict, we devolve all that money, all those programs and services and power to the aboriginal governments, this House, this government will not be as powerful as it is today. We can also predict that the communities and the aboriginal governments will be much more powerful. That means that we will have to consider that the communities will have additional representation outside of this House. In fact, we have to consider that the aboriginal governments may be just as powerful, and perhaps more powerful, than this House once those negotiations are completed.

Why are some Members afraid to give the Yellowknife area more seats in such a diluted government? Why are they afraid to follow more closely the democratic principle of equitable representation. Mr. Chairman, I ask the Members of this House to agree with the general principles that were enunciated in the commission's report and that is to give two additional seats to the Yellowknife area. Thank you.

--Applause