Thank you, Mr. Chair. First off, I should inform the public, of course, if this motion passes, it actually doesn’t go back to the Electoral Boundaries Commission that had been established. It would cause the Board of Management to strike a new one.
The reason I moved the motion was, and I certainly hope I’m not the only one who feels this way, but there is some concern about how the three decisions have come about and how varied they are in such a way that it’s very challenging to accept. We’re well within our ability, certainly, our authority, and under time constraints we have the time to do it, so there’s no unnecessary pressure for us to immediately make a decision today on the Electoral Boundaries Commission report that’s before us today. By the same token, I think it would be a mistake for us not to consider that, in my view, and certainly in the view of many people that I know and I’ve spoken to over the summer, that the report was just too one-sided with all three recommendations. As I said in my earlier statement, even if you wanted less government, the only way to do it, according to the report, was go this route. And if you didn’t like that decision, then you were forced to then go look to the next one, and successively, and that’s been very, very challenging for many people.
For myself, I find that, as I said in my earlier opening comments, I felt that it’s not the commission’s fault in any way. I have great respect for the work that they had to do, and I suspect that they received an earful constantly from people about what they want and what people wanted in the communities and fair representation and the type of representation that they wanted.
The issue I raise here is not about necessarily more MLAs or less MLAs, but fair representation, and
that is, I think, the fundamental question about how do we balance that. I think that’s the type of instruction we need to be giving the commission to ensure that representation is fair and depoliticized.
As I said in my earlier comments, and I used that by way of example, that perhaps maybe three judges could do this, one from our Supreme Court, one from our Territorial Court and maybe one from somewhere else. That is, how we get there I’m not exactly sure. Not to say that judges don’t have different opinions, I mean, the Supreme Court would always be voting in unanimity if judges were all of like mind. The challenges and the discussions they would have, I think, would be very deep and very concerned, certainly, in the areas of how fair representation should look like across the Northwest Territories.
Earlier we heard many colleagues talk about value, dollar value, that is, and what the cost of MLAs is. I think sending it back to the commission with the right instructions and perhaps, if there’s instruction later today coming through another motion that binds us to it, I think that would take that type of discussion away. The value of democracy is certainly a challenging one, and I think Churchill said it’s also messy, but by the same token, it’s certainly one of the best things that we have, and it’s one that we need to continue to cherish relentlessly even in its darkest days.
The issue before us now is we have to accept a recommendation for 18 MLAs, 19 or 21, and I don’t think it truly represents what the voices out there are saying. As I said earlier, without the varied considerations to it, we put ourselves in a very uncompromising position. One of the challenges we sent the commission out to do is come out with a decision that we can work with. Well, the problem is what if it’s unworkable? We often talk about trying to make sure, as politicians, oddly enough, to depoliticize our direction on these instructions. Well, it’s kind of like the old phrase of gerrymandering. I mean, we shouldn’t ever be in there saying, well, let’s just move the line over here and that will be better. I mean, there’s got to be substantial reason why we would nudge a line or two over ever so slightly in the context of balance and fairness but, I mean, we cannot be seen in any form as drawing our own lines for our own areas.
I don’t think that the instructions given to the Electoral Boundaries Commission were complete. Again, no fault of their own, but I think we can do that here today, and we certainly have that ability here today to do that. By voting for this, I think what we could do is certainly sit down and ask ourselves what are all the problems that got us here today with this report. I’m not talking about the problems of poverty or the problems of education; I’m talking about how we couldn’t provide clear instructions to get a simple reply back. As I said earlier, I think the
ones to blame are government or, in the sense of the Members, why the instruction wasn’t simple and clear.
I think the best and only solution for our particular quagmire that we now find ourselves in is to redirect the next phase of this report to go back to the Board of Management, which can issue instructions to a new Electoral Boundaries Commission, and my hope, with clear, simpler and precise instructions, we can get exactly where we want. As we’ve all heard today varying points of view, I’m not sure more MLAs or less MLAs are the right solution, but I don’t think the solution that came forward was the one we need.
On that note, that’s all I have to say at this particular time.