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.