Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I, as well, support the bill as brought forward with the boundaries of existing jurisdictions, constituencies, in Yellowknife, Hay River, Inuvik adjusted which keeps every constituency under the 25 percent as required by the court ruling.
Madam Chair, the issue comes up repeatedly and the political discussion, as Minister Dent indicated, that we have to have, that we chose not to have when we started this process because I recollect it was raised by myself and maybe one other, is it's going to be up to us politically as a Legislature to set the ceiling of what we consider adequate government and have a boundaries commission operate within that basic parameter. Otherwise, I, as well, have the same concern and we have seen it ratchet up since division. But the easiest way out is you just keep adding more and more seats, you have MLAs tripping over themselves. We are the most over-governed jurisdiction, when you look at all the levels of government that we have; federal, territorial, municipal and all the other organizations that are there. There is a significant cost and I believe that we are well suited to do the business of this House with the membership that we currently have. I agree, as well, that this can be seen as an interim measure and the Legislature of the 16th Assembly will hopefully look at the debate and put it on this table and recognize that one of the challenges they have to do when they set out the terms of reference is have the political discussion ahead of time about the future of the Northwest Territories, and what do we need to provide good government when it comes to MLAs. I know there is a concern that large centres, some communities have the numbers but a small geographic area. Some regions or constituencies have a large
geographic area and relatively small numbers comparatively speaking. Our focus is, and has been, mainly on the numbers, not on the effect of the geography, which is a challenge in itself when you look at the federal constituencies where I believe Nunavut and the Northwest Territories are the two largest jurisdictions in the country with over one million and a half or so square kilometres each and one MLA to cover that whole vast territory, but a relatively small number of people. It's an issue that we have to look at as well next time.
But for this particular exercise, I fully support keeping it the same, adjusted within the 19. For my constituents, it is very clear that we don't need any more government. But if we have an extra half million dollars a seat or whatever it is, then let's put that half million dollars into the base somewhere to do fuel rebates, to do wood stove programs, promote energy efficiency, more nurses, more doctors, more teachers, language programs, and the list could go on; chipsealing Highway No. 5.
---Laughter
So if there's any concern about finding the money, then I think we could all find ways to put that money to better use than adding more MLAs just because the court says and we want to see if there's a Legislature, just keep ratcheting up the number of MLAs in shrinking constituencies. Our job is to make the tough decision. We didn't do it at the front end. We have a chance to hold the line here and hopefully set it up to do it the next time. But I would suggest to you it would not be responsible for us to add to the cost of government that is already very, very high, so I fully support this Bill 14 as it's laid out. Thank you.