Thank you, Madam Chair. The things I'm going to say are really reflective of what I've heard in my community, the constituency of Yellowknife Centre. The fact is, I appreciate the work the commission did, but we also have to keep in context that they are an advisory group and they do not force us. They are an administrative body that we commissioned out of this House to go find research, come back and to substantiate what they heard into some formulation and then send it off as a proposal to the politicians. Now, in essence, the politicians are the ones that actually have to make the decision.
I'm concerned that I think the report, to some degree, although I sincerely do appreciate their work, I feel it's flawed in the sense of fundamental principle, because I don't think that they heard what the people were saying; they heard what the lobby groups were putting forward.
The reason I say that is because I read page 6 of the report and it talks about where they basically heard a strong voice of keeping status quo, and then they heard a strong voice from small communities outside of Yellowknife to give them more MLAs. They heard, you know, don't change anything that could cause the increase to Yellowknife. You know, they even point out the high cost of travel between communities. Now every one of those is significant on their own right and I wouldn't want to say that it isn't, but now we're getting into high cost of travel between communities. I mean, that is not for this report to be talking about. This report should be talking about fair representation, not what it costs to put gas in your car or to buy a plane ticket.
So I read this and I think, you know, to be honest -- and I say this with an enormous amount of respect for the Tlicho people, and the Tlicho Member knows that I mean this -- that I have a lot of respect for those folks, but my concern is they lobbied the heck out of this commission and they did a fabulous job. I mean we should commend them in a sense of they brought busloads of people. Well, from my community perspective, people I heard from thought it was going to be status quo. If they had any assumption that it wasn't going to be status quo, they would have brought trucks and busloads of people to lobby too and say well, wait a minute, there is a voter problem, and the voter problem that I see it as in a sense of in the House is Yellowknife is still under-represented by at least between one and two MLAs and that's because of our population throughout the Territories it isn't being fairly represented in this House.
The people I spoke to said one clear thing, which was they want programs, not politicians. So when we recognize that the cost is almost $900,000, that's almost $1 million we'll be putting into, potentially, MLAs. That causes people concern. So what did the fiscal Conservatives say? Did they want more politicians or did they want more programs?
The problem I have with this report is I was actually one to side with Mr. Miltenberger who believed that we should set from the very start to say no more MLAs. So stop at 19, do the hard decisions, but I don't think they seriously considered the two big factors of what to do with the smallest riding and how to deal with the weight of a vote.
Again, I still have to go back to the fact that Yellowknife is still being under-represented in fairness. I guess I kind of dismissed, to some degree, the fear-mongering people may have or may be suggesting or the private citizen saying if we don't adopt this, we will go to court for sure if we don't go their way. But we have to remember, that's the right of anyone. That's the great democracy we have and we share here. Sometimes we require judicial guidance to finally get the true answer or the right answer. I am sometimes challenged when I listen to some folks about what is the right decision, because what has changed in Yellowknife so significantly, what has changed in the Northwest Territories so significantly that we have to justify two more bodies? I have to point out, yet again, Yellowknife is still short over one Member. If we do 45 percent of the population in the Northwest Territories, it is not represented here in seats in the Legislature.
I am concerned that the lobby effort, again I recognize that had swayed the commission and the commission felt that they heard very strongly that a group of individuals wanted another MLA in their region. To be honest, what I think I heard from the Member who represents that region here today, is the fact that people in Yellowknife and anywhere else still treat themselves as Tlicho citizens first. So, therefore, they call their Monfwi representative first, rather than their local MLA. I think that's truly a problem. I don't know how to help the Member in that regard. He's got to do and he does, by all means, do the best job he certainly can. I certainly wouldn't want to take away the person's opportunity to feel that that is the MLA they should call. I recognize that the Member works very hard for people of his nation no matter where they live. I think that's a problem and we have to figure out as a Legislature how to do this.
I go back to say that the commission is truly an advisory commission and there is nothing here that binds their hands and forces us to accept it either way. We could strike it down and say we need 23 MLAs. We could strike it down and say we want 20 or we want to go to 17, for goodness sake. So there are a lot of options. They are recommendations.
I will dispute one thing my colleague did say. Actually, I often hear that Yellowknife is the largest aboriginal community and we have a significant aboriginal population that makes Yellowknife a great place. That's got to be recognized, too.
So it's truly a challenge here to find the right way to make a final decision. I have very strong views from other sides of constituents in all fairness, Madam Chair, and I have to make sure that their concerns get out as well. The fact that this is one of the few opportunities that Yellowknife has to put more bums in seats here and finally show that there is fair voter parity in the Northwest Territories. The fact is that it is one of the few chances to open up this discussion to say we can have a more fair process. Will Yellowknife be under-represented if we go to eight seats and we have 21 in the whole Legislature? Yes, we won't solve the problem. If we really wanted to deal with the problem, the last court challenge would have said let's consider numbers only and they would have done it and we would have ended up with nine seats in a House of 19. I know they recognize the diversity of the North and the importance of balancing reasonable situations where you can be overrepresented. You have to recognize language, history and geographical lines and that's why they came up with seven out of 19. I respect that. Like I said at the very start, sometimes these things require judicial guidance and maybe that's where this has to go.
Madam Chair, to close this off in a fair way, I have a few very strong constituents that are advocating that we seize the opportunity to grab the extra seat for Yellowknife, only I wish a Member wouldn't have said that the communities would have voted against the courthouse because that would have been their chance. I wish this play between the small communities and the city of Yellowknife would stop. I like to think that the Yellowknife Members continually support the small communities when we can in a fair and reasonable way.
So, Madam Chair, I haven't totally made up my mind which way we will be going, with 19 or 21. I will be taking a few more minutes to listen to my colleagues and I will be making a clear and decisive decision when the time is required. Thank you, Madam Chair, for your time.