Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair. Provision 17 establishes new advanced voting opportunities for small communities. As Members know, we have 10 days of continuous voting in those communities that have a resident returning officer. In those communities without a resident returning officer, some communities under the law, as it currently stands, would have a single day advanced voting opportunity and some other communities likely would not. What this change does is it establishes an advanced voting opportunity for all small communities so that there’s a greater equality or fairness across all our communities in the Northwest Territories. The reason for the four days of continuous voting, we recognized in a proposal that 10 days would likely be too much for small communities, recognizing they have smaller populations than many of our regional centres, but at the same time wanted to have a continuous opportunity to reflect the manner of continuous voting, recognizing that people may not be able to attend to the poll on that day or on polling day, but if they had more opportunities to vote then I think there’s a greater probability that they’ll cast a ballot. The four days in particular where we’ll have advanced voting mirror those four days where we have voting at multi-district polls.
Mr. Brock on Committee Motion 95-17(5): Concurrence Of Tabled Document 115-17(5), Northwest Territories Capital Estimates 2015-2016, Carried
In the Legislative Assembly on October 30th, 2014. See this statement in context.
Committee Motion 95-17(5): Concurrence Of Tabled Document 115-17(5), Northwest Territories Capital Estimates 2015-2016, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
October 29th, 2014
Brock
See context to find out what was said next.