Thank you, Madam Chair. Before I begin, I’d like to commend the work that was done by the Electoral Boundaries Commission bringing forth what this government actually gave direction to. With that said, perhaps, maybe in hindsight, we could have actually given a little bit better direction in how this government wanted to proceed on such an important issue that’s going to affect representation of our constituents and residents of the NWT moving forward.
The Northwest Territories is very unique in that we have a very diverse culture. I represent many different groups, some that weren’t First Nations to the Northwest Territories before and I don’t speak their language, I don’t practice their cultures, but I do represent them and I feel that I represent them very well in this House. Not just the uniqueness of the Northwest Territories and to have what we have before us today, we do have a decreased population in the Northwest Territories, but one of the recommendations is that we’re looking to add two new Members.
That being said, we did have discussions on this on numerous occasions and one thing that I want to bring up to Members of this Assembly is we’ve got to go through the budget process, whether it’s for operations or capital, while we fight to offer better services, programs and infrastructure for residents of the Northwest Territories. If we look at adding any new Members, whether it’s equal representation or effective representation, that’s something that’s been brought up in this House before.
I’ve worked with Members on this side of the House and that side of the House for the last two years and I feel that each and every Member does a great job in representing their constituents, their ridings, their community or, in some cases, Yellowknife, where I feel they have a great representation of MLAs that are very effective in bringing forth the issues of Yellowknife. Obviously, that’s one of the ridings that are being affected with this increase to 21.
Do we need more Members to talk about the issues we’re still talking about today? We did have a throne speech yesterday that outlines all the work that this government has done, the 17th Legislative
Assembly, and you just have to sit and listen to all the work, everything that’s been accomplished in the two years, that’s with the numbers that we have now. Do we need to take more money out of the government budget to add two more Members so that we can have more people talking about what we need in the communities? I don’t think so. Working with the Members in this House, for me, I’ve had the firsthand opportunity of seeing the work that Members do.
As for public consultation, the commission did go out, and even before that I want to talk about even the election process. During our election the voter turnout we did have lower percentages of turnouts in some of the jurisdictions around the Northwest Territories. I mean, you have to factor that in too. Why are we going to have more elected leaders when the residents of the NWT aren’t coming out and voting in some of the jurisdictions to try to get some of these people in? The public consultation put on by the commission, they did visit 14 communities with only 149 people that came out to these consultations. Yet, we’re trying to fight for more MLAs in this House. Twenty written submissions, some of which were by Members of this House. So, I mean, you’re going to hear from those same Members today as well.
What it comes down to for me is that in just over two years that we’ve been working together as a collective 17th Legislative Assembly, I do feel that
we’ve done a lot of work with the Members that are here in the House today. I feel that by adding two new Members, which is one of the recommendations brought forth to us, it will be
taking out possibly program and service dollars, possible infrastructure dollars that our communities need, that the city of Yellowknife needs, and dollars that are not going to be there when we’re looking at the next operational or capital budget. Do we need more people sitting around the table talking about needing another school? We already know that. Or that we need more psychiatrists or physicians? Do we need somebody else around the table to say yes we do? No, because we’ve said it already. Do we need another person to say we need another treatment centre, to say it over and over again? No, because we’ve all said that. I guess you can pretty well see where I’m going with this.
The report itself gave out a lot of good information. There was even talk in some communities about how come 20 Members wasn’t discussed, an increase of one number. Just sticking to the commission, they said no, we were given direction of 18, 19 and 21. Like I said at the beginning of my little talk here, perhaps in hindsight this government could have given a little bit better direction on how to move forward. I know it’s all about equal representation, but as I said, we do have a lot of MLAs here and I feel that each MLA brings something unique and they’re effective in what they speak about in terms of their constituents that they represent. You look at the population of the Northwest Territories and it’s about 43,000 residents. Yet you look anywhere down south and the representation that one Member of the Legislative Assembly has to deal with, and we’re talking about, give or a take, a few hundred other constituents. I’m sure that any Member here is capable of doing that, of taking on a little bit more members to represent and bring their concerns to the table in the House.
If we continue to look at the increase, the 21 Members, I feel that the structure of how the Assembly will run will also be different in terms of looking at Cabinet and possibly committees. At this moment, I think you know where I’m going. I think residents of the Northwest Territories see the work that is done in this Assembly and they also feel that we don’t need any new Members. Equal representation definitely is a concern here with some jurisdictions, but I feel that if we do add any new Members, it’s going to take out of operating and capital budget dollars. We do need services, we do need programs, we do need infrastructure in the communities and in the territory.
So just my opening comments, and once again I thank the commission for the work that we directed them to do. They went out, did their job and came back, and today we’re going to make a big decision on where we go from here. I hope all Members take into consideration what each and every Member discusses today because everyone is bringing something different and unique to the table. We all have different ridings that we represent, whether it’s
culture, population or language, and that moving forward we do the right thing with the taxpayer dollars and the residents of the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Madam Chair.