Thank you, Madam Chairperson. I would like to say a few short words in response to Bill 15. I would like to speak about the history of where we come from and where we are at. Over the last few years efforts to develop the constitution for the Northwest Territories, the new constitution, have been unsuccessful. We spent two and a half years as part of the constitutional working group. A lot of effort was put into that, but unfortunately that process was halted.
Division recently focused on the issue of representation in the Legislature and specifically on the discrepancy between the rural ridings and urban areas. People in the urban areas such as Yellowknife feel the burgeoning population in their ridings is depriving them of their right to equitable representation in the Legislative Assembly. Many people feel the discrepancy between the size of the urban and rural ridings has become too great and are out of balance. It was therefore felt there must be relative parity or equality of voting power so that each person's vote has similar power. It was further the opinion and feeling that we are legally obligated to ensure everyone's vote is equally represented in this House. The definition of representative government is tied to the electoral system and begins with the right to vote in section 3 in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Section 3 of the Charter states that every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of Members of the House of Commons or of a Legislative Assembly and to be qualified for membership therein.
The Supreme Court of Canada has held that the purpose of the right to vote is effective representation, that every citizen is entitled to be represented in government. Supreme Court has also addressed the conditions of effective representation and Madam Justice McLaughlin considered this question in respect of Saskatchewan constituencies in reference regarding provincial electoral boundaries, Saskatchewan. The first condition was found to be relative parity or equality of voting power and she stated:
"A system which dilutes one citizen's vote unduly as compared with another citizen's vote runs the risk of providing inadequate representation to the citizens whose vote is diluted. The result will be uneven and unfair representation."
Madam Chairperson, this became an issue, as was the issue of effectiveness of the Legislature with only 14 Members. This Legislature subsequently voted to establish an Electoral Boundaries Commission. In the summer and fall of 1998, the boundaries commission conducted a review of electoral ridings through a community consultation process. This commission was composed of two people from rural NWT communities and one Supreme Court justice from Yellowknife. Despite the fact that the commission stated it was within its mandate to recommend an increase in the electoral districts up to a maximum of 25 Members of this House, they resisted this broad approach and decided to recommend minimal changes with the addition of only two seats for Yellowknife. To address the potential changes that may come about in the future because of land claims and self-government and the constitutional process, the boundaries commission recommended that a further boundaries commission be established when the current process, meaning land claims and self-government processes, have resulted in a resolution to the constitutional framework and structure of government for the Northwest Territories. The justification to proceed with the commission's report were many beyond the various legal precedents that are out there. One such issue is the effective functioning of the Assembly. Quite simply, 14 Members are not enough for an effective Legislature run on a Cabinet consensus parliamentary model. The boundaries commission review noted the unfair disparity between urban and rural ridings. The commission therefore recommended the creation of two additional seats for Yellowknife. Unfortunately, this recommendation was defeated in this Legislative Assembly and a subsequent motion to create only one additional seat in Yellowknife was also defeated.
In turn, the decision to keep the NWT down to 14 ridings was then challenged in court by the Friends of Democracy. In early March, Justice Mark de Weerdt declared three of the NWT ridings, Yellowknife South, Yellowknife North, Hay River, to be invalid because the population of these ridings was more than 25 percent higher than the average population of all the ridings. Justice de Weerdt upheld the Friends of Democracy position that the under-representation of certain constituencies was contrary to section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He rejected the position put forth by the Government of the Northwest Territories and supported by the intervenors, that section 3 is subject to section 25 which guarantees aboriginal and treaty rights. Justice de Weerdt noted that 20 percent of the voting population of Yellowknife consists of aboriginal people whose right to affective representation in the Legislative Assembly is effected equally with that of the non-aboriginal population by the existing maldistribution of seats in the Assembly.
Justice de Weerdt also concluded that removing the basis for the existing gross numerical under-representation in the Assembly of citizens of Yellowknife need not in any really significant way alter the existing balance of political power in the Assembly. Justice de Weerdt declared the three ridings of Yellowknife North, Yellowknife South and Hay River invalid but did not tell us how to fix the problem. At first it seemed possible to solve the problem by splitting each of the invalid ridings to create three more seats. But as soon as additional seats are created the average population of each riding changes and other ridings come into dispute. Once we added two seats to Yellowknife and one to Hay River then the other ridings, one in Yellowknife and one in Inuvik, were under-represented by more than 25 percent so more seats had to be added to solve the problem.
Other configurations to our solution here of adding five seats are possible. The five seat option is the only one that maintains the cultural and geographic integrity of the ridings. An alternate proposal for one more seat in Yellowknife to make only a 15 Member House would, for example, involve redrawing electoral boundaries of a number of existing ridings. Members have not seen fit that this is an acceptable alternative proposal.
To summarize, we had the opportunity for a political solution through the boundaries commission. If the Members were concerned about how many seats Yellowknife had, or the urban/rural balance, then they could have passed that particular motion to add two seats to Yellowknife or alternatively, one seat to Yellowknife. Additionally, we could have gone with 15 seats adding only one seat to Yellowknife, but it requires the redistribution of other ridings.
I would like to comment on the committee consultation process. I did not participate in the community consultation for several reasons, with the major one being that in my opinion the Constitutional Working Group conducted community tours and community consultation two times during the two and a half years that the working group was in existence at a great expense to the territory, but they did very extensive consultation, much of which concerned the representation in this House. Reports of that were prepared and were readily available.
Today we have their report before us along with the bill and their recommendations to consider. When the recommendations and motions are made I will make further comments on those particular motions. Thank you, Madam Chairperson.