Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

WHEREAS the residents of the Northwest Territories have voted for division and on the boundary that will divide the Territory;

AND WHEREAS the coming into force of the Nunavut Act on April 1, 1999, will divide the Northwest Territories;

AND WHEREAS the effect of the creation of the Nunavut Territory leaves the Northwest Territories with 14 electoral districts;

AND WHEREAS the Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides for the right to vote in a free and democratic society;

AND WHEREAS these rights include respect for the inherent dignity of the human person, a commitment to social justice and equality, accommodation of a wide variety of beliefs, respect for cultural and group identity; and faith in social and political institutions which enhance the participation of individuals and groups in society;

AND WHEREAS each citizen is entitled to be represented in government;

AND WHEREAS to provide for effective representation in a Legislative Assembly, electoral boundaries must provide for a fair allocation of its electoral districts.

AND WHEREAS the term of the 13th Legislative Assembly expires in November 1999;

AND WHEREAS the residents of the Western Territory should be permitted to make their views known on the matter of electoral boundaries;

NOW THEREFORE I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife Frame Lake, that the Northwest Territories Electoral Boundaries Commission be established in accordance with part 1 of the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act.

AND FURTHER that the Northwest Territorial Electoral Boundaries Commission, in preparing its report, shall take consideration:

(a) the geographic and demographic considerations, including the sparsity, density or rate of growth of the population of any part of the territory and the accessibility, size or shape of any part of the territory;

(b) any special community or diversity of interests of the inhabitants of any part of the territory;

(c) the means of communication among various parts of the territory;

(d) the minimum and maximum number of Members of the Legislative Assembly, authorized by the Northwest Territories Act;

AND FURTHER, the Commission should strive to maintain a balance between urban and rural populations when recommending the boundaries of constituencies.

AND FURTHERMORE the Commission should take into consideration the cultural and linguistic interests of the territories and its present land claim boundaries when recommending the boundaries of constituencies;

AND FURTHERMORE take into consideration any other similar and relevant factors that the Commission considers appropriate. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it has been some time since we have been elected and earlier in our term, we established the Northwest Territorials Electoral Boundaries Commission in October 1996, for Nunavut and the west.

Mr. Speaker, the last time a Boundaries Commission was sent out from the Assembly of the Northwest Territories, was back in 1993-1994, but that was not to create any new seats. The last time seats were created or changed or deleted was in 1983, I believe.

Mr. Speaker, members of my constituency have come forward with a concern of representation when it comes to a 14 Member Legislative Assembly. Some would say we should go for an election even earlier, at the same time as Nunavut. For stability's sake, we carry on until the time that is established, which would be the following year in October of 1999, which would be the normal election time. Without changing what we will have presently after division of 14 Members, the concern would be with representation from an Ordinary Members' Caucus, versus a Cabinet situation, where you would have six proposed Cabinet Members, the Speaker, yourself, would remain and there would be seven Ordinary Members. The accountability is what is being brought into consideration. How can Ordinary Members hold Cabinet accountable from just a one vote majority?

As well, I have my own concerns about what it comes after division, April 1, 1999. There are 14 seats left in the Legislative Assembly after division. When you look at it on the map in the Inuvik region, including the Sahtu, the Mackenzie Delta and Nunakput ridings, there are four seats in the whole northern part of this territory, the Western Territory. There is some concern from members of my community, as well, that needs to be addressed.

I hope this is established and that Members of the Assembly support this in establishing the Commission so it could go out and look at all of these matters, accountability of Cabinet versus Ordinary Members and whether it is fair and equal representation, north and south, throughout the Western Territory. I do not believe this is a move to try and locate power to a certain part of the territory when it is a matter and a way of making sure all residents of the territory have fair representation, not based only on population, but based on the ability to be represented. I have said it before, myself, coming from Inuvik. At times when I have questioned Ministers in this Assembly, it seems like when you are out of sight, you are out of mind. One way of balancing that is to look at your existing boundaries and the amount of representation one regional area would have versus another or one community over another. I do not believe we need to prolong the idea of a Boundaries Commission. I think it needs to be sent out. We did meet with the Aboriginal Summit. They have concerns with the Boundaries Commission going out. If we establish a Boundaries Commission and have it report in due process by fall, for example, we could, as the Western Caucus of this Assembly sit down with the Aboriginal Summit to discuss what has been recommended. There are a lot of opportunities to continue to work together.

We are aware that existing boundaries after division will bring into question the ability of residents of this territory to be represented fairly. Knowing that, I do not think it is fair that we, as legislative Members, would sit on that and allow that to pass by and wait for a court challenge or anything of that nature. We have an opportunity to speak and make decisions as we were elected to do. To move forward and to make decisions that would be in the best interests of the whole territory and allow residents of this territory, which would be the Western Territory, to tell us what they think about it. In the past, the Western Caucus made some decisions and sent a message out of what we proposed to do. Some would say and ask me why have you changed your mind? Mr. Speaker, I was elected by members of my community to represent their interests. Once the news had come out that the Western Caucus had set out a plan, there were questions raised, concerns mentioned and the calling for the Electoral Boundaries Commission.

For two years the Beaufort Delta Leaders Conference laid out motions to establish a Boundaries Commission. In their motions they were quite specific. They were calling for an extra seat in Aklavik and one for Tuk.

The following year and this past March, there was another motion. It was just mainly to get a Boundaries Commission out. They believed that needed to be looked at and addressed. I would not be truthful if I was saying I was doing this for the best interests of the whole territory. Of course, I have interests for the area I represent. As I stated earlier, we do have concerns. With 14 Members left, if you look at the system, whether it is four or three versus the rest of the territory if it ever comes to that, it is a small portion although we have a large land mass. I hope that Members here would look to moving forward with this and giving the people of this territory the ability to speak on the issue of the Boundaries Commission. The only way that it can be done is by establishing a Boundaries Commission and sending them out to interview and meet with the people. If we are not going to move with that, then we are saying that although we are elected, we will make the decisions and a few will have input. We will make the final decision and we will wear whatever comes out of it.

As I said earlier, Mr. Speaker, I represent my constituency. My constituency and members of it have spoken. They would like to see an establishment of the Boundaries Commission. I do this, Mr. Speaker, in the hopes that others will see the reasoning in letting the people of the territories see the issue and make recommendations. Have all the people of the territories said 14 is too much? Maybe some would say they need more, maybe some would say they need less. We have not given them the opportunity to voice their concerns or raise questions.

For good government, we need to send the message out to the people that, yes, we are willing to listen to your comments and concerns. We are listening and we will, in fact, enable a Boundaries Commission to go forward and receive those. At the appropriate time when the commission comes back and reports to the Legislative Assembly, we could follow the report with recommendations. We have heard so many times in this forum we need to move on, make decisions, get on with the business of government. This is one of the points of government. There are concerns that there are many other things happening within the territory that could confuse this. Those processes will continue. This is not to be established to hinder that process. This is only to establish that the government as we know today, which will change and has changed, is recognizing the potential problems of a new Western Territory in only having 14 Members. I hope that Members of this Assembly would see that, and allow their members of their constituencies to speak to a Boundaries Commission and let their views be known. Truthfully, we can say that we have allowed the people of the territories, the Western Territory, to express their concerns. Whether some would say, 14 is enough government. Some would say the bureaucracy will continue to run it. The bureaucracy does not come to my constituency. Bureaucracy does not come and tell the elder lady that we have changed the program. They come to our offices as members of the Assembly. They come to us to ask the questions. Many do not feel comfortable with the big wheel of government pulling in a bunch of government employees or bureaucrats, as we would know them coming off the plane and telling the people how it should be done. They want to ask their Member. We can give them the opportunity to voice those concerns and say if they feel they are under represented. I urge Members of this Assembly to give the people of the territories a chance to voice their concerns and express their views on their representation in the Government of the Western Territory. I hope that with this, it will allow the process to continue. We will allow decisions to be made, and we will show the people of the territories that we do take all things into consideration and that we will move forward with the idea of being a better government or a good government. Let us let the people voice their concerns. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

--Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when the Western Caucus first looked at this issue, I agreed that the status quo should continue. Mr. Speaker, at that time, the timetable set by the Constitutional Working Group saw resolution of the constitutional process taking place a lot more quickly than what we expect now. I felt that for the short period of time, we would have had envisioned before the implementation of a new constitution that we could get by, and we could tie a Boundaries Commission to the implementation of the government that resulted from that new Constitution because it would be for just a short period of time.

Mr. Speaker, we know that the Constitution will not be approved before division and that the length of time that the 14th Assembly will govern looks to be longer than what we expected a year and a half ago. I have now changed my mind, Mr. Speaker. I believe that we do need to have a Boundaries Commission. This is why I have seconded this motion. Mr. Speaker, the major reason for me to support this motion is that I believe we need to have the capacity to set up good government. I do not believe we can set up a government that will enjoy public confidence with just 14 Members. Under the current arrangement, Mr. Speaker, Ordinary Members outnumber the Executive Council by almost two to one. We have eight Members of Cabinet and 15 Ordinary Members. The public sees this as a key part of maintaining government accountability. Cabinet needs to build a consensus to make sure it has the support to move ahead with new initiatives. With 14 Members, Mr. Speaker, we have agreed to go to a Cabinet of six. In spite of the reduced population we will have in the Northwest Territories, we will still have the same departments and government responsibilities. It will be very taxing work for those selected to Cabinet. My experience in the last two and a half years of being in Cabinet, Mr. Speaker, with an eight Member Cabinet, you have to be prepared to put in long hours, and it will get much, much longer if we have only six.

Mr. Speaker, there is another problem, too, with accountability with six on Cabinet, with one Speaker and six Cabinet Members, that leaves seven Members as Ordinary Members. The balance of power shifts significantly from what we have right now. If any one Ordinary Member is travelling or out of the House because they are ill or even just on the phone, Cabinet will completely control the process. To get support for initiatives or legislation, the Cabinet will only have to convince one Ordinary Member to go along with it. The public will not see this as protecting their interests.

Mr. Speaker, I would argue that the functioning of the House will also be extremely difficult with just 14 Members. We now have 15 Ordinary Members. These Members now serve, five each on each of the three standing committees, with the Chair and deputy chair of each committee then serving on Government Operations. With only seven Ordinary Members, there certainly will not be enough Members to divide up into a number of committees, certainly not three committees as we have now without a significant amount of overlap. More likely, we will see one committee of seven Members which would have to oversee all issues now sent to committee. That means that each Member will have an awful lot more to do. It means that they will have less time to work in their constituency and on constituency issues. It will also translate, most likely, into less time for Ordinary Members to pursue information in committees which again will mean that the Ordinary Members will be less able to hold the government accountable. Some suggest that a smaller government could be more responsive. I say, Mr. Speaker, in a smaller government, the Members will be too busy to even talk to their constituents as much as we do now.

Mr. Speaker, I also think that there is a significant liability of a court challenge given the current make up of our seats. A court challenge, Mr. Speaker, I believe, could be based on just the Yellowknife seats. They do not even have to look at comparing any of the seats in Yellowknife to outside, but just within Yellowknife because the size discrepancy just within Yellowknife has the smallest seat in Yellowknife less than half the size of the largest seat. There is no justification for that kind of difference in size. So somebody going to apply to the courts could allege that the boundaries are not fair right now. Yes, Mr. Speaker, some have expressed some concern about the fact that a Boundaries Commission might result in Yellowknife getting another seat or two. Given the population, Yellowknife probably deserves another seat or two. I certainly think we need to give the Boundaries Commission a chance to have a look at the issue. Mr. Speaker, someone suggested that we should wait for the challenge. I would say that the responsible approach is to be proactive with the debate taking place in this House today and the coverage it will get. I have no qualms about saying, Mr. Speaker, that a challenge is now assured. Rather than put off what we will probably be forced to do and rushing through it, Mr. Speaker, I say, let us do the responsible thing, do it now and take the time that it requires to do a good job.

I have also heard, Mr. Speaker, concerns about the cost of adding extra members. I would have to say that in the grand scheme of things, Mr. Speaker, the cost is not very big. We are talking about a $600+ million operation here. To add four Ordinary Members would cost approximately $1.2 million. Mr. Speaker, I am willing to bet that the reduction in the size of Cabinet from eight to six will more than offset the cost of four additional Ordinary Members. We could add four Ordinary Members without driving up the cost of government, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I have also heard people say that more MLAs does not mean better government. You know, Mr. Speaker, that is right. More MLAs do not automatically translate into better government. However, Mr. Speaker, I would argue that fewer MLAs, like 14, will mean a less accountable government, and I do not think the public wants that. Let us hear what the public has to say. I personally think that we need 17 or 18 Members for this House to operate in a manner the public will see as accountable. The only way we will find out for sure is by sending this out to the public. Let us vote, yes, for this motion, and let us allow the public to have their say. Let them tell the Boundaries Commission what they think about the numbers of Members and what the seats should look like in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

--Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be supporting this motion today. I have pondered over the make up of the new Western Territory with 14 Members for some time. My initial thinking was that 14 Members would be a good number to go with and certainly people of the west seemed to want us to keep the number low. However, after having digested and looked at the situation, I have come to the realization that with 14 Members, six of whom will be in Cabinet, plus the Speaker, that leaves seven Ordinary Members. Sitting on the Ordinary side now, I can well appreciate what this role is, what this job is.

I can very strongly state that if we only have seven Members on this side, we will be a very ineffective government. Part of the reason for that is that the Members will be overloaded with work. Right now, we have four main standing committees for 14 Ordinary Members, plus we have two minor standing committees, the Western Caucus and Ordinary Members' Caucus as well. In addition to that, we serve on various committees, such as the Constitutional Working Group, the Western Coalition, and on and on it goes. In order to function, we need some numbers. I am not suggesting that we have to increase it by a lot, but I think it needs to be looked at, Mr. Speaker. My position would be that I am in support. I feel that the situation in Yellowknife also needs to be addressed. We do have 45 to 48 percent of the future territories' population and four Members out of ten at the moment.

I think if the Boundaries Commission is looking at this, they definitely need to take into consideration the Yellowknife situation. Mr. Dent has pointed out the inequity that is there now where the smallest riding in Yellowknife is half of what the biggest riding is in Yellowknife, so there needs to be adjustments. Mr. Speaker, at the time of the vote, I will be voting in favour of this particular motion. Thank you.

--Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to speak to this motion as well. To me, there are two key issues that have been put to us. One is the legal question, could we face a court challenge if we do not have a Boundaries commission. How many MLAs do you need for good government? I see there the potential for all sorts of incredibly good jokes, like how many psychologists does it takes to screw in a light bulb; more than 14 I think. Mr. Speaker, on the legal

issue, we are presented every day with the possibility of a court challenge on decisions that we make and if we were to respond to every issue we would be totally paralysed. Decisions would be driven by legal opinions which like many other things - every lawyer has one - may have two depending on how much money you have. I say, if there is a legal challenge we will deal with it like we will deal with any other situation where we make a decision as an Assembly and people are not happy with it.

In regard to how many MLAs we need for good government, I think we have had 14 MLAs for the last few years. I think 1983 was the last change in seats, my colleague from Inuvik said. Now that we are dividing, the issue of critical mass comes to the fore. It is easy to create a self-fulfilling prophecy that we need more MLAs to run government. In fact, we have never tried to run with 14. We are going to have a six-month period from April to August to do that. I would suggest that we could, in fact, restructure our operation and our committees and our policies to provide good government with 14. It is easy to say we need more. We say it all the time. We need more money for education. We need more money for pay equity. We need money for health. I would bet you my bottom dollar, Mr. Speaker, that if you ask the people of the Northwest Territories, if you could take $1.2 million, or whatever the cost is going to be, to reinflate this government to what may be deemed acceptable proportions and if you could ask people, would you rather have money spent on education, health and housing in your community or would you want to have another truck load of MLAs driving into Yellowknife with their benefits and pensions and put it toward good government. Do you want to make that choice? I can tell you what the people of my constituency will tell you? We have enough MLAs and more MLAs is not a guarantee of good government. I would suggest, from all the debate I have heard and the articles I have read in the newspaper, very clearly, a lot of people see even 24 MLAs as too much.

Well, that is good, Mr. Erasmus, because ten are going to Nunavut, so you will not have to worry. Mr. Speaker, we met with the Aboriginal Summit last night, who are in the process of trying to nail down a political accord. They have given us their position on this. We asked them in the winter, when we said we were going to go with 14, would you support this? They said, yes. They continue to say they are not in favour at this time of a Boundaries Commission. Mr. Speaker, neither am I. I do not think this is an appropriate time. We can do this once division happens, once the dust settles, when two territories are up and running, once the Constitutional process, which we have invested millions in, have had a chance to deal with this issue, once self-government talks progress to the next level, which indications are they are going to do that.

It has been brought up that there are many processes already underway in the communities. This, over the course of the summer, would only be another confusing factor. I am suggesting that we take the same approach that has been suggested with the naming of the territory. Yes, it is an issue, but we will do it later, at a more appropriate time.

Mr. Speaker, it makes no sense to me at this time. We are going to be experiencing a loss of 40 percent of the territory. To me, it certainly seems possible that we can continue to function with what we have. Departments have told us as they have come before us with their budgets when we have talked about division and the impact of losing 40 percent on your volume. They are not volume sensitively. Mr. Speaker, I would have to think that as an Assembly and as a government we are volume sensitively. We are going to be getting smaller, but our MLAs and their number are going to stay the same. Very clearly, this is a political issue. There are legal implications and legal opinions, but as we have heard in this House, Yellowknife thinks they should have more seats. My colleague from Inuvik is concerned about being outnumbered by people south of the Sahtu and they want more seats. Where does this escalation stop? I think we have an obligation to the people to make wise decisions. We did make a decision on 14 and I do not think anybody's abrogating their responsibility if we say yes to a Boundaries Commission, but not now. How much government do we need?

This is a consensus government. We are supposed to be able to work together, to structure ourselves along the traditional ways to do business. Be it 14, 18, 12 or ten, we have never given it a chance. We have people that are buying into the quasi-political party approach where you have to have Cabinet and everybody else in opposition, as opposed to us working together. Which is always what I thought the intent of consensus government was. I can tell you, as well, that I do not think people will say if you had 50 MLAs here the accountability would necessarily be any better or that you would be able to control Cabinet if that is the approach you want to take. At the end of the day if you do not work together, accountability will always be an issue. I think that is a red herring. We have never given this situation a chance. We have those that want to protect the status quo, who want to inflate our central government at a time when we do not have enough money for our people, programs and services in the communities. I cannot believe that we are going to drape ourselves in this kind of rhetoric and flag-waving to say, give the people a chance because we know they want more MLAs. I do not think people want more MLAs and I think it is not the right time. We should recognize what the Aboriginal Summit has said, our partners in what will be a political accord, and let us wait. Let us see what happens and does this at the right time. Thank you, Mr.

Speaker.

--Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be supporting the motion. I have also been back and forth on this issue a fewness times, but I think after all is said and done by us here, I think we do need to hear from the people we represent and I think the commission is an excellent opportunity to do that. At that time, they can tell us things like if they think there are too many Members. Maybe they think we can operate with less Members. There is quite a wide disparity in the size of the ridings that we represent. I know myself, I represent one of the larger ridings in the territory and it is a tremendous amount of work and responsibility. Mr. Miltenberger says there are ridings in Ontario with 80,000 constituents, but this is the north. We do things a little differently here, Mr. Speaker, as Mr. Miltenberger knows. I think we do have to have the critical mass, for lack of a better word, in order to run our government properly and with a breakdown of seven and seven I do question whether or not this is feasible. Having said that, we could argue this for a long time. I think the most important thing is that through the commission we will give northerners, the people in the western Arctic the opportunity to speak to the subject. At that time we can then come back and debate it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I speak to this motion as well. My concerns are in regard to the timing of this particular motion. I realize that my constituents for my communities voted in favour of a Boundary Commission at the Beaufort Regional Leadership Conference. This was the second indication of their wishes, as Mr. Roland pointed out. Mr. Speaker, the only problem I have with this particular request from the Beaufort is that they did not indicate clearly as to when they would like this Boundary Commission to take place. Mr. Speaker, I do have concerns with the timing of the Boundary Commission in that I would hope that the Boundary Commission, or the people putting the Boundary Commission in place, will take into consideration the facts that there are consultations that are going to be going on in the communities on the constitution. A Boundary Commission touring the same communities at the same time may cause a lot of confusion within the communities. I would hope that the Boundary Commission would go forward after the consultation on the constitution has taken place. I have that particular concern.

However, I have a larger concern in that, as other members have expressed, the ability of government to operate with 14 Members. Mr. Speaker, we already indicated to the federal government that we may be operating with 14 Members as of April 1st, 1999 until elections in October 1999. This would be a timeframe whereby we would get a pretty clear indication of how effective a six Member Cabinet really is. I am also very concerned about the ability for seven Ordinary Members not only to control Cabinet, but to hold meetings and review all the work plans of the government. What kind of a workload are we putting on those seven Members and would they be able to effectively review all that information? We have had, Mr. Speaker, in our own experience in the past three years, a good indication of the amount of workload that is involved in reviewing government work plans. I would be very concerned about that.

I think my major concern is whether or not 14 Members could control the bureaucrats. That would be my major concern. Would we want bureaucrats running the government? Would we be able to have enough information and be well informed enough to be always on top of the bureaucrats, or do we just take whatever the bureaucrats recommend and go with that? That has been one of my major concerns in the past three years, how do we get control and keep control of this particular government bearing in mind that bureaucrats go on from one assembly to the next? They are there all the time. I personally have experience where we came here with the idea at one time that we were going to have a brand new government, a brand new work plan, and a brand new way too, but, in fact, the bureaucrats had quite a bit of say as to what that brand new plan was going to be.

With that in mind, Mr. Speaker, I do not look at a new Assembly, say the first Assembly of the new territory, whatever it would be called, and wish to put a workload on them that they could not operate effectively. Mind you, we still do not know whether it is going to be 14 Members after the commission is finished. We do not know what those numbers are going to be. Let us hear what the public has to say.

Mr. Speaker, I would recommend strongly that this motion does not indicate a time frame. Rather than suggest a timeframe at this point, I would hope that in deciding when the commission would operate we would take into consideration the fact that there are going to be tours in the communities on the constitution. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I will be supporting the motion as it is.

--Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I had actually not intended to speak at all for lack of time to prepare some notes. I feel it is important to address it. I have not had time to consult properly with my constituents. I did raise it on a number of occasions in a number of constituency meetings that I have held. One of the first points that I made with all of them is that there was an agreement made with the Aboriginal Summit earlier this year by some of the leaders that said we will leave the number of seats in the western legislature at 14. I felt at that time that, it was not done considering whether or not 14 was a number that could allow us to operate effectively or not and that it may actually compromise the ability of this government to represent the public and that we had, perhaps inadvertently, compromised the ability of the government to do its primary duty which is to represent and to carry out the functions of government on behalf of the public. Nevertheless, that commitment was made, and I understand now that the Aboriginal Summit leadership is still not exactly supportive of the Electoral Boundaries Commission, but that they would probably seek to have some advice on how to be set up, if that was what we wished to do.

I would have preferred that the decision or understanding that was made in January would have not been made at all. I know that the Aboriginal Summit, the aboriginal leadership, is moving toward some sort of an understanding on the type of government that should be set up here in the west in the initial terms of the Government of the Northwest Territories, as we know it after division.

Mr. Speaker, I have been a Minister in the government. This is my third term. Hopefully it will be going for a fourth.

--Applause

Thank you. It is my view, based on my piddly little years of experience, that six is not enough and that 14 is not enough. I think our primary duty, because we are in a public government, is to make sure we can operate as effectively as possible and that, in my view, 14 is not enough, six in the Cabinet is not enough. Although I have reservations about the way in which we have come to make a decision and the context in which it has been made, I have decided not to sit it out, but to join the debate and much to the delight, I am sure, of some Members to support the motion. Thank you.

--Applause