Mr. Chair, the motion here is one that seems to be the simplest or logical to come to a decision to deal with this issue here. That, for me, is not right. We are looking at rejigging the line within the Yellowknife riding. It will be an issue, as the Member already talked about it, and it’s not going to resolve an issue for the Monfwi people. They’re still at plus 39, so rest assured that there’s a high possibility of a court challenge coming from the Tlicho people of their representation in the Legislative Assembly.
I believe this motion has a disregard for the people, the culture, the land and the language. You’re bypassing that just for the sake of numbers. If a nation of people, you force them to move in with another culture group, another nation of people, those days are gone. We have evolved into our own sovereign nation with our land claims, within our boundaries and of our land, where we hunt, all those need to be considered paramount to effective representation. To have this motion disregards that.
I believe the number 21 is the way to go. We have lots of bureaucrats in our system and if we want to save money, we know where to cut money. It’s simple. We have extra positions coming every time for budgeting sake. We have extra positions coming into headquarters. We’re increasing our bureaucracy, and this motion here may be a motion that says, yes, we can do this. It doesn’t do us or me any good to move it forward. You’re not going to have peace within the Territories. I heard it. We’re trying to force the decision that may seem logical, it may see okay, but it’s not the right one. There must be another way to deal with it. I think that this motion here will do more harm than good. It may be fine on paper but in practicality and reality it’s not very healthy, it’s not very good. That’s what I’m saying about the 19, the number here. I really have a hard time to accept it and I won’t be supporting the motion.
I think that we need to look beyond the 19, look at another motion where it seems that it’s workable. For myself, we need to recognize the Northwest Territories is very unique. Again, I go back to what the old Premiers, former Premiers have said what they need to do to ensure that certain constitutional rights were back in the Constitution of 1984. That’s what we’re doing. This is a very unique situation we’re in and we’ve got to look at that. That’s who we are. We’re in our land, in our culture and in our language, and we’ve got to bring that to the front. If you do this motion, it doesn’t give credence to our cultures and to our people. I have faith that we can
do the right thing. Looking at the economics, the social, the political, the cultural and you weigh it against the 19, it doesn’t balance out, it doesn’t even out. I will not be supporting this motion for those reasons.