Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the opportunity.
I found this to be a very difficult topic, very difficult report to understand. We have the people from the Northwest Territories, the Aboriginal people that are
impacted by decisions made in this House know where the boundaries should be drawn, individual communities. The 19 seats option, there’s something that Akaitcho Territorial Government passed a motion to support and that was to leave the status quo as is. They have difficulty understanding why, with the amount of MLAs, that they would have to take and essentially eliminate one seat from the small communities. That’s what 19 does, so they wanted to go to status quo.
Today we are here to look at three options: 19, 18 and 21. In order to make the option that people of Tu Nedhe and some of the people that I spoke to at Detah/Ndilo, and as MLA Bromley indicated, they too don’t want to become a part of a riding outside of Yellowknife. They see Yellowknife as their homeland. In the future, they see that Detah/Ndilo, YK Dene could be a majority in a Yellowknife seat, one of the seats here in Yellowknife. The people of Tu Nedhe see that with the population changing and the population migrating to the urban centres, that unless we put good representation and keep good representation for those communities, that’s going to continue.
If you look at why a riding like Tu Nedhe needs to have an MLA of their own, all you have to do is look at the social issues and employment rates in those communities. The employment rate in those communities is only 30 percent. When I travel to Tu Nedhe, as I represent the people of Fort Resolution and Lutselk’e, I go visit from household to household to household. When I visit 30 households in a one-week trip in either of those communities, I come home with at least 30 issues for the government. The people in those communities rely heavily on the MLA. They rely heavily that we have representation in the House. And, as MLA Nadli says, when I travel into those communities, I speak two languages. Sometimes in Lutselk’e I go all day without speaking English. I wonder how an individual that is unable to speak Denesoline or Chipewyan is able to effectively represent individuals. However, that same person that speaks Chipewyan would have a lot of difficulty representing anywhere else that didn’t speak the language where there are Aboriginal people that are more used to trying to present their situation, often elders. Often the elders in these communities are living on old age security and they’re the main income earners in families, old age security, and that’s what they’re living on. People live in poverty in those communities. People have been living in poverty in those communities for so long, they don’t even know it’s poverty. For me to watch the Legislative Assembly say, actually you don’t really need individual representation to represent the Chipewyan people, that you can just combine with another riding and that’s okay, is actually very hurtful to me.
People recognize at a federal level, as an example, the differences. If we’re only concerned about numbers – and I agree people are under-represented shouldn’t exist – but at the federal level, as an example, they recognize the difference between people being overrepresented and culture. When you have a federal riding of Brampton, Ontario, of 170,000 people and the average federal riding is 112,000, they are under-represented, but that doesn’t mean that the federal government is going to now make a decision to combine Labrador, Nunavut, Northwest Territories and Yukon in order to get the numbers right. They recognize that the 29,000 people in Yukon, the 41,000 in Northwest Territories and the 34,000 people in Nunavut are distinct, different groups that need their own representation.
In 1873, when Canada became a country, Prince Edward Island got four seats. They acquired those seats. Each seat has 34,000 people. That’s 69 percent below the average of 112,000, but no one is coming to PEI and saying they are only eligible for one seat now because we have to get the numbers right.
We, as legislators, are here to represent people. Fort Resolution and Lutselk’e have had their own seat for 40 years. When you consider the age of this Assembly, I’m thinking that they’ve acquired that seat. They have a right to their own seat in this Legislature. They have the right to have their language spoken in this House. It’s one of the official languages. With what this Assembly is looking at, if we go to 21 seats within maybe not this election but elections to come, I assure you that there will be no Chipewyan language spoken in this House. [English translation not provided.]
[Translation] Okay, with the people here, it’s going to be without us. Okay.