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.