Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. We will go to the chair of the Rules committee for clarification. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks for that question. It’s not unusual. In fact, it’s probably more common than not that candidates have some expenses that they incur before there is an official representative, so that the financial aspects remain at arm’s length. Perhaps ordering signs for a remote community or something to ensure that they are there in time, whatever it might be. Usually they are fairly modest. This is to legitimize those expenditures and make it clear that those are legitimate for the actual candidate to be doing spending early on, perhaps even before everything has been formalized.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Committee, just to be clear, we should be speaking to the motion. This process is not a process of asking questions, only in extreme cases. I have already allowed three today. Just keep that in mind here, committee. To the motion. I will go back to Ms. Bisaro. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m done, but it just helps if we have a bit of an explanation of the motion before we know what we are voting on. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. To the motion.

Question has been called. The motion is carried.

---Carried

Mr. Abernethy.

Mr. Chair, I move that the Elections and Plebiscites Act be amended to require candidates to include statements from accredited financial institutions for campaign accounts in their financial reports to Elections NWT. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Hawkins.

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. As we are discussing the motion here, it never occurred to me before now, and I think this motion needs a couple of words, which are “where practicable.” I think in some cases that accredited financial institutions becomes challenging if you are in a small community.

We did talk about the challenges a community candidate would have. If they are in a small community and they are given cash as a donation, they write a receipt, obviously, and then they need money for gas to go somewhere. The money didn’t flow directly through the bank and get on the statement through that process directly, so when you do a balancing out of the receipts versus the statement, it may not necessarily match and not because of any fault of anyone.

I recognize what we want to do. I fully support the principle of the transparency of that and ensure that everything lines up and is clear and people are doing these things all aboveboard, but frankly, I worry about the practical application, as well, at the same time. The example I gave in committee is if whoever is running in Nahendeh and they just happened to be in Fort Liard and somebody comes up to them and says, here is $500 for your campaign, they are able to issue them a receipt but they need gas money to drive back. Maybe they’re driving back to Fort Simpson or wherever. They need gas. They pay for it. The challenge is the practical application of it. I certainly fully support the intent and it fully makes sense. It is just the operation of it and how do we adjust or balance off this?

The question is: Do I suggest we move an amendment to it? I think that is probably where I should do it right now. I haven’t prepared for it because I just thought of it. So I would like to move an amendment to it.

The Member is proposing an amendment to this motion. We will have to prepare that.

Before we have to break here to prepare this amendment, can the Member clearly articulate exactly what this amendment is? Thank you. Mr. Hawkins.

Mr. Chair, I would add the following at the end of the last word and it states, “where and when practicable.”

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Committee, we will just have to break for a second to prepare an amendment to this motion. Thank you.

---SHORT RECESS

Thank you, committee. I will turn it over to Mr. Hawkins to read in the motion. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Committee, the amended motion is in order. To the amended motion. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am fully in support of the context of providing statements from financial institutions. That’s not the issue here. The issue here is they don’t necessarily guarantee that they line up. First and foremost, if you are running from a small community that does not have a financial institution and there’s no guarantee that there will be an available one every time, every election, you are then forced with options. It’s easy to say there will be one in every Northern… Well, not every community has a Northern. So the issue is if someone makes a donation to a particular campaign, your receipt books guarantees that. It matches; it shows money coming in. Your expenses that you fill out in your expense report show money going out. So, whether that’s going out by cheque or by cash through your elections folks, that lines up. So there’s an actual balance there, Mr. Chairman.

The problem is – and we didn’t really get an answer during the committee process when we had the elections officer there – what do we do when there’s a discrepancy between at the accredited financial institution and the expense book? There’s the issue and we didn’t really get an answer. Some will say it’s a reference. That’s fine, it’s a reference, but a reference is a reference. You’ve got your receipts, you’ve got your receipt book from donations, you’ve got your receipts from expenses and they should be lining up. If they don’t line up, that’s where you should be having problems. If you’ve got an accredited financial institution that issues a bank statement, this definitely means that you have to make sure everything flows there, because if there is some gap that you chose… For example, you got a donation and you spent it on gas to go somewhere or you bought some food for some people who were hungry at the moment, including yourself, what do you do? There’s a gap there.

Some people will say it’s easy to get one. That’s fine, maybe it is in most cases, but the problem is what you do when they don’t line up, and we never got an answer to that. That’s a real-life situation. It

probably won’t line up in all the cases. So then what type of scrutiny have you put those candidates under when they don’t line up? In other words, your cash lines up from your donation. Your expenses make sense because they all are laid out, but if your financial institution, if you’re able to get one, doesn’t match those two. I’m just trying to keep people from being caught up in some type of situation here. We are trying to make things easier, not more challenging.

Maybe I am the only one who is seeing it this way and everyone thinks it will be fine. The moment it won’t be fine to one person, that one person is going to be sweating terribly, trying to figure out how to deal with the situation. It’s the administrator who will be making the rules on how they comply.

I’m just worried about the small guy. It doesn’t affect anyone in Yellowknife or Hay River or Inuvik or even Fort Simpson or Fort Smith where you have normal banking institutions. If you are a candidate anywhere else, then maybe it will be a bit of a challenge. It may not be a challenge in every small community, but we have to keep that in mind. I thought we were thinking of small communities as well as large communities here. I’m just worried about those candidates who potentially could run from a small community who could be challenged, that’s all.

If it fails, at the end of the day it doesn’t affect me. I am just worrying about somebody it may affect. That’s all that matters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. To the amendment. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I realize the Member is on the Standing Committee on Rules and Procedures and was present during the rather extensive discussion we had on this, which we’re hearing again today. The CEO assured committee members that every community does have an accredited financial institution that would qualify. This includes co-operatives and Northern Stores. It’s recognized that not every transaction will be on the record of a financial institution. I suspect that’s true for all of us here today, but every receipt of dollars and every expenditure must certainly be accounted for and documented in one form or other, as Mr. Hawkins said.

This motion provides one of the tools that have been deemed by the Chief Electoral Officer to be the most useful, and committee explicitly recognized that while it may be most valuable in communities or in campaigns where dollar amounts are large and transactions are a bit more complex, it will also be a useful record in all communities, especially for the relatively large transactions that are made in each campaign. Again, it was considered a useful tool and a financial oversight quiver and its limitations were fully recognized and discussed. Committee agreed on the wording here

and specifically concluded that exceptions were not required.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. To the amendment. Mr. Hawkins.

Mr. Chairman, I think issues like this much better belong in regulations as opposed to into law, and to me this is where it belongs, in regulations. I mean, that’s why the finessing of it can be much more appropriate.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. To the amendment.

Question has been called. The amendment is defeated.

---Defeated

Committee, we are going to go back to the original motion of 86-17(5). To the motion.