Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m speaking, also, against this bill. I want to back up some of the points that I’ve heard already raised on the floor today. It deserves repeating that the people of Weledeh, the people of Tu Nedhe, the representative of Weledeh and the representative of Tu Nedhe disagree with this, and those are the people that are being affected here.
Fundamentally, even before this decision is finalized, it’s out of date. We know that ridings are already above the 25 percent guideline. Data that was used is now out of date because some ridings are growing rapidly. It took only 28 people to raise the Weledeh riding above the 25 percent guideline, and anybody who takes a drive up there sees the amount of construction, the amount of homes and apartment blocks that have opened since those initial data were collected.
The same thing is happening now in Kam Lake, and we know that most of the Yellowknife ridings are within about 35 or 40 people of overcoming the 25 percent guideline. Weledeh is 42 percent above the expected number that should be in a riding. There is no question that needs adjustment, but that can be applied to all of Yellowknife and it can certainly be applied to Monfwi, as we’ve heard. That has been going on for three Assemblies.
To me, this is completely unacceptable. This is even a bit colonial to start doing these things without regard to what we know or is actually happening on the ground. Making decisions on data that is out of date and we know is out of date and not addressing the fundamental issues and the democratic guidelines. So here we are, we seem to be again disregarding the will of the people and disregarding the guidelines. We know we are already outside of those guidelines and we haven’t even implemented, yet when it comes into effect, we are going to be way out of this.
So, again, this is unacceptable to me. It’s unfair that it’s already out of date and I’m kind of embarrassed that we’re making decisions knowing that these things are true. So I will leave it at that.
Many things have been said before, but daily this is becoming more true. Daily we are getting further beyond the guidelines that were established for the country and we’re not applying them. We don’t necessarily have to apply them extremely strictly, but generally we are way out for quite a number of ridings now and quite a significant proportion of the people of the Northwest Territories. We’re talking about 60 percent or more of the Northwest Territories. So that seems to me beyond the camp. On that basis, I don’t think we should go forward with this legislation.
It’s tough. It means back to the drawing board, but at least we would have a clear opportunity to get it right, and I think we would all feel more comfortable for doing that. Thanks very much for this opportunity, Mr. Speaker.