Thanks, Madam Chair. I, too, want to thank the mover and the seconder for bringing this motion forward. Like Minister Miltenberger, I felt we had a very vigorous and very long debate last fall and it was one of the best debates I think I’ve ever heard since I’ve been here.

I stated then that the status quo was not an option for me. What we have basically in front of us in terms of Bill 18 is status quo and I can’t support the status quo. For me there are probably three main reasons why.

The riding of Monfwi is grossly under-represented and we’ve known that for quite some time and the bill as presented does not address that. The amendment does address that, so I support the amendment in that regard.

The riding of Tu Nedhe is a really difficult issue, but we as a territory have stated, and it was part of the directions to the commission when they went out to do their work, that they were to consider the geography of our territory, they were to consider the cultural aspects of our territory, and I consider language to be part of the cultural aspects that they were to consider. I don’t believe that the bill addressed those adequately.

Yes, it keeps us to 19 but, you know, in the bill, the proposed Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh riding leaves two

reasonably distinct groups extremely unhappy. Some people would say, yeah, well, get it over it; you know, just deal with it, but there’s no other riding, except for the ridings in Yellowknife, who would be that diverse. Every other riding in the NWT would be somewhat homogenous and yet we’re saying it’s okay to have one riding where we have two cultural groups which are not, so I have a problem with that.

The third issue for me, and it’s been mentioned already, but the ridings in Yellowknife, every riding in Yellowknife currently is very close to the 25 percent plus or minus level that has been set based on a court decision some time ago whenever that was. The amendment allows for some growth in Yellowknife. The bill as proposed does not allow for growth in Yellowknife and I suspect that the current Weledeh riding is probably over the 25 percent margin as we speak.

It’s been mentioned that Yellowknife is growing and the communities are not, and I agree with that. I think that Yellowknife, although it’s not growing by leaps and bounds, Yellowknife is growing. The need for the amendment, to me, says it gives the Yellowknife ridings a bit of space to grow in terms of population and the bill does not allow that for me.

One other thing that I want to mention is that the court decision in 1999 stated that overrepresentation is better than under-representation. Basically they said it’s okay to be overrepresented and if we go to the 21 we will have one riding that’s, I would say, grossly overrepresented, but for linguistic purposes I can accept that and cultural purposes I can accept that. But under-representation is not okay and that was what came out in the court decision. The amendment addresses the under-representation, not fully, but far better than what the proposed bill does, in my mind.

So for those reasons, Madam Chair, I do support the amendment. Thank you.