Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I will just start off by thanking the members of the commission for coming out with this report. I think it opens a lot of ideas in this House to how we can treat voter representation on a fair and even ground. I just want to say that the rebalancing of the Inuvik, Hay River and Yellowknife constituencies definitely will bring everybody under the 25 percent deviation, plus or minus, that we want. I don't believe that a bigger government is a better government. I have to agree with that on a lot of what all Members here were saying about some guidelines that should have been clear to the commission in what we were looking to get out of the commission, as opposed to building bigger government and spending more money.
The issue here is under-representation. The overrepresentation is not even an issue here. With the under-representation, all these communities that are pretty borderline on the 25 percent deviation, I don't think in the next five to 10 years there is going to be much change in any of these numbers. Percentage-wise, maybe three to five percent given the development of the Mackenzie gas project, and maybe the Deh Cho where they become more even and Monfwi will probably grow and Yellowknife might even shrink.
I think given these numbers that we look at here, they are all so close, so who is under-represented? Just because you are on that 25 percent threshold, does that really mean you are under-represented if everyone else is 22 or 23? I think we are all on the same playing field and it should be noted as such. Nobody is plus 35 or near the 30s. There is no real large split between the communities that we feel are under-represented. I don't think that adding more seats in this House is going to change these numbers by any significant improvement, as far as I can see.
Just with a note on that, like the other Member was saying, this is a Charter right, this 25 percent voter parity issue. It's also acceptable to be over 25 percent also, as stated in the commission's report. These are based on regional concerns. They are acceptable if they contribute to better government. I think across the board, everybody in the NWT is pretty well represented in this House with the 19 Members that we have here. I do fully understand and support that Monfwi really is on a borderline for under-representation based on the fact that the geographic layout of the territory is one that has the Member dealing with all the challenges that we in the House here, many of us only have to deal with some of those geographic challenges on one side of the coin; whereas, Behchoko being on the main road system and all the other communities -- Gameti, Wekweeti -- are fly in only or drive in in the winter, you know, presents twice as many challenges for any Member in this House. But again, I have to say that Behchoko is on the road and it's close to Yellowknife. Like one Member was saying, if they wanted this government to support them on some initiative that they feel to get done or changed or have implemented, they will come over here in busloads and fill the gallery and they're lobbying right there. Whether they have one, two, three Members sitting in this House, I don't think it's going to make their efforts to get represented here in this House any more or any better than what it is today. Just with the whole population dynamics, it seems like with the latest Stats Canada numbers our population is going down. So who's to say what's going to change in eight years? Maybe everything will even out even better or look better in eight years, maybe it won't. Maybe we'll need an extra five seats in eight years, but that's to be seen.
With respect to any court challenges, we could get challenged on anything. Like other Members said, that's up to the public, that's their decision for them to make and I don't think it's something that we here should be backed into a corner and saying if you do this we're going to take you to court. With me that doesn't really change my opinion of how we can make decisions here in this House, because everything we do decide here is open to legal challenge no matter what it is.
So I just want to summarize by saying that I do support the Monfwi seat, but if it has to come with Yellowknife getting an extra seat because it is one of the recommendations, I'm not supportive of that. But I don't know why they didn't just make a recommendation to add one seat for Monfwi period and draw some new electoral boundaries in Yellowknife, Hay River and Inuvik. So I don't think all the options were really considered here, looking at what people were telling them. Like another Member said, everybody in the NWT feels like they're pretty well represented here as it stands and I just have to go with what the general public tells me and how I'm going to be voting on this bill. I'll have to support what Bill 14 is recommending. Thank you, Madam Chair.