Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, too, want to commend the work of the Standing Committee on Rules and Procedures. This committee has met extensively throughout the life of this Assembly, and has had many meetings on many matters that have been brought before it, and they have helped clarify everything from our code of conduct, guidelines, to the Mid-Term Review, and ultimately this is the last large piece of work that they have undertaken, and it was a substantial piece of work.

I also want to mention the Chief Electoral Officer has brought forward a very substantial work on her own initiative, and it is very good to see so much thought going to how we can modernize and improve our electoral system. Voter turnout and ease of candidacy has always been an issue, not just for our electoral system, but for many electoral systems. I am really pleased to be having this debate today, and to be considering these motions. All of us rely on a sound electoral system that is easy to approach, and encourages not only voters to turn out, but for candidates to put their name forward and step up to represent their communities. That can be a daunting challenge for many people.

I think much of what has been considered and what is being recommended is only going to help that, and I hope we are all challenged in the next election, and we all do our part to ensure a robust democratic process moving forward, so I look forward to the remainder of the afternoon while we will be debating these motions, and making real change to our electoral system. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Testart. Any further general comments? Seeing none, Mr. O'Reilly.

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. There's a motion on the floor. The motion has been distributed and is in order. To the motion. Mr. Testart.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I support this motion. In fact, it was in my electoral platform that this was a change that I thought would be beneficial. Over the course of the election, I spoke to many residents of Kam Lake who had just moved to the riding. Kam Lake is a community on the grow, and some people were not able to vote because they did not meet that 12-month threshold. It is a curious thing that the three northern jurisdictions have a year-long residency that is required. I was just reading in the press the other day that there was a candidate in Nunavut who sought to run in the previous election, and was unable to because she failed to meet the one-year requirement which is also required for candidates.

I think this is a way to open up the electoral process and encourage more participation. The North is a place of opportunities, and we are always trying to attract new residents, and to have those new people's voices added to our democracy is only going to strengthen the exchange of ideas that MLAs bring forward, and to empower them to be part of our democratic process. I would even say, we could drop this from six months to as soon as someone establishes residency in the Northwest Territories, but I think the committee did consider that and ultimately decided on taking a balanced approach that cut the time requirements in half. I think this is a very important and positive recommendation, and I will be supporting it. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Testart. To the motion.

Question has been called. All those in favour. All those opposed. The motion is carried.

---Carried

Thank you, committee. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The second motion is: I move that this Assembly recommend that the Elections and Plebiscites Act be amended to set the first Tuesday in October as polling day, and that the November alternative polling day be eliminated. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. There is a motion on the floor. To the motion. Mr. Vanthuyne.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and again, I appreciate the effort that the committee has put in, in doing some research with regard to this. What is interesting is that, in fact, the two jurisdictions in which the report references with regard to, that are voting currently on Tuesdays, interestingly enough, I have come to know that those jurisdictions, in fact, now are revisiting that and considering moving to Saturday.

It was the recommendation within the report that it be considered for a Saturday, and there is a lot of reasons for that, and the first is to do with the convenience for electors to attend the polls without having to schedule it into a busy workday. Of course, it would increase the voter attendance numbers. Secondly, many of the polling stations occur in schools, and a Saturday polling would alleviate any kind of concern with the schools and their schedules within the gymnasiums, and any security concerns associated with the presence of children.

Thirdly, Mr. Chair, a Saturday event would also allow for a significantly expanded human resources pool, which is always a challenge during elections for staffing up election positions. There are a number of people, individuals who possess adequate skills, that it would broaden the pool. A lot of times, those skills that are required for managing polls are people who are at work, commonly Monday to Friday. Certainly, it would increase the pool of people able to work during an election.

I am not going to make a motion to amend this, but I just wanted to, for the record, share my views that I was in support of the original recommendation to have a Saturday be considered. I am not sure that moving to a Tuesday, in fact, changes anything, and that the effort should even be considered. Why not just leave it on a Monday? Those are my comments, Mr. Chair, and I just wanted to be able to put those on the record. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. To the motion. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I just would like to respond briefly to my colleague, the honourable Member for Yellowknife North. I want to assure him that we did look at all of the options. On page 64 of the Chief Electoral Officer's report, there is a very interesting table of jurisdictions around the world and what their polling days are and also another figure showing the days that other Canadian jurisdictions use. We had all of that information available to us.

I think one of the reasons that we didn't really go with the recommendation from the Chief Electoral Officer was that having a poll on a Saturday might reduce turnout in small communities, in particular because people want to go out and get on the land and do their thing. This is coming at a time of the year in the fall when the ability to get out onto the land -- winter is coming. People want to get out and do their stuff. I think that is why we stuck with a day of the week.

We chose the Tuesday in particular because, with Monday, there is some reluctance on the part of candidates and their workers and so on to work on a Sunday. We felt that having the election on a Tuesday would still allow people to go out and do last-minute work on a Monday without upsetting people too much, perhaps. That is why we settled on a Tuesday. I appreciate the comments from my colleague from Yellowknife North, but wanted to offer that brief explanation. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I, too, am supportive of the recommendation, going to a Tuesday to vote. I have the very same concerns as our chair. In the communities that I represent, I have seen the community empty out on the weekend sometimes in the fall time, when there is a lot of hunting and things like that. A lot of the community members from the community I represent go out hunting. They are back during the week for when the kids are back in school and so on.

In another community, a highway community, a lot of the people would just go to the neighbouring, larger community for services that they are not getting in their small community. This was something that we discussed and the reason we had changed the Chief Electoral Officer's recommendation of going to a Saturday to vote because, historically, small communities have come out to vote. Our turnout is, I would safely say, about 70 per cent. That way, we want to try to for sure maintain that type of voter turnout, if at all possible. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Next, I have Mr. McLeod - Inuvik Twin Lakes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I don't have a problem with the motion of the first Tuesday in October. I am okay with that. I do have a question on eliminating the November date. I am not sure if this is the forum to ask it or a concern. We had the November date. Is this going to limit our ability if our election is concurrent with the federal election again? Is this going to limit our ability to have a November election so we don't over-cross with the federal election?

I think the last time we had our election on November 23rd because the federal election was going on at the same time. I am just curious as to whether or not this is going to limit our ability to do that, or can we just come forward an amendment in the House or a motion in the House to change it? I think we did that the last time. I am just concerned whether this limits our ability or not. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. I will allow the chair to respond if he would like to. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to be able to respond to my honourable colleague from Inuvik Twin Lakes. I am happy to try to respond. The effect of this motion would be to delete the provision in the existing Elections Act to move our Territorial election into November if there is a federal election around the same time. Yes, to be clear and open about it, that is what the effect of this motion would be.

We had quite a discussion at committee about this. The Chief Electoral Officer in her report, as well, identified a number of problems with having our election that late in November. It wasn't just about candidates trying to campaign in the winter. She also identified problems with trying to get ballot boxes to some communities that time of year, making sure that people get home while it is still daylight. She identified a variety of issues. It wasn't just about candidates because I had one colleague of ours say, "Are we just doing this for the candidates?" No. It is not just about the candidates. It is also about making sure we can run good elections.

As a committee, we looked at this issue. We thought that, if we moved our election forward, it is maybe not as far as we would all like to try to avoid that overlap or potential overlap that could happen maybe every three or four elections. I may not get all the timing right here. We decided to try to move ours forward even so ours would fall before the federal fixed date. I understand it is not perfect. We thought about trying to move it forward even a bit further, but then we run into the harvest time and people wanting to get out on the land in the fall. We tried to get a compromise. The best that we could come up with was to move ourselves to a fixed date, the first Tuesday in October. I think that is a good compromise that I am hoping all Members can support. Thanks, Mr. Chair. I hope I did an okay explanation. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the explanation from the chair of the committee. If we are thinking of just moving ours forward just so we don't overlap, then I am pretty sure I can support that. I would also like to know if the chair would be willing to contact the Prime Minister of Canada and see if they can move their election date a little further back so we can have ours at the appointed time. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

---Laughter

Thank you, Minister. The Minister is looking for commitment from the chair. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think I might have to take a page out of my colleague's notebooks here and say, "No." Look, I know that the question was asked rather facetiously, and I do want to provide some assurance that this was an interesting debate at committee that we had more than one time. I think we tried to come up with a reasonable compromise. If I had any ability to influence Ottawa, I would probably be in Ottawa now rather than in Yellowknife. Thank you for that.

Is there anything further from committee? Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Motion is carried.

---Carried

Thank you, committee. Mr. O'Reilly.