Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would just like to briefly speak to this motion in the hopes that when the commission starts its business, I will read the record of their appointment, and I want to make a suggestion as a Regular MLA, for the record. As they go about doing their good but complicated work, that they consider not increasing the size of government. We should hopefully be maintaining the 19 seats, and no more. We are a very small jurisdiction, with some of the smallest constituencies in the country, next to Nunavut. The cost of our government is very expensive. As we listen to the debate in this House, and the request for day care money, and the request for chipsealing, and the request for housing, and the multitude of requests that we get on a regular basis, I
don't think anyone in the Northwest Territories outside of this Assembly would say what we need most, above all those other things, is more politicians. It's a very expensive proposition. We are 19 Members for 42,000 people. That is, in my opinion, more than adequate.
If we have trouble making a quorum in our committee meetings, it's not because of function, or because we don't have enough MLAs or Cabinet Ministers. It's a function of everybody showing up on time to do the work that's required of them as Members of this Assembly.
I am very glad that we have such an august panel that's being struck, but I want to have on record that I have always been a proponent of the fact that 19 is enough to do good government in the Northwest Territories. If we did a poll, I would bet my paycheque that it would be overwhelmingly against any more seats in this Assembly by the people of the Northwest Territories. Thank you.