Thank you very much. Upon reviewing the final report thoroughly, it was felt that if we moved electoral districts of the Kam Lake and Yellowknife South electoral district boundaries, it would realign some of the distribution in those districts. At the same time, this motion recognizes that we have a somewhat workable solution with maintaining 19 MLAs. I believe we moved some lines in the Inuvik district as well as the Hay River area. It’s workable and maintains our 19 MLAs for the Northwest Territories and is something I believe the majority of the people of the Northwest Territories would like us to do.
Like I said earlier, my constituency – and I’ve heard from others – certainly don’t want to see our Legislature grow. We’ve got a relatively small population compared to lots of jurisdictions. I think the Electoral Boundaries Commission report says we have about 43,000 people. Adding two more MLAs just doesn’t seem the right thing to do at this time, perhaps in about eight years.
We’ve heard in this House this evening about how some populations have changed, some have reduced and, in fact, some have grown. At the same time, I don’t believe it’s grown enough in eight years that we should add two more MLAs. I believe that if we realign districts and some boundaries, I think it’s a workable solution for us for the next eight years when the Electoral Boundaries Commission
is enacted again to review electoral boundaries. Those are my remarks, Madam Chair.