Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chairman, committee would like to continue consideration next of Committee Report 14-18(3), Special Committee to Increase Representation of Women in the Legislative Assembly final report. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Thank you for clarifying that. I thought that committee might have different intentions. Committee, we have agreed to consider Committee Report 17-18(3). I will go to the Chair of the Special Committee to Increase the Representation of Women in the Legislative Assembly for any opening comments that she may have. Ms. Green.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you know, earlier today, the Special Committee to Increase the Representation of Women in the Legislative Assembly presented its final report. The committee report included three recommendations, and I look forward to the opportunity to discuss the report and recommendations in Committee of the Whole. Members of the committee may also have individual comments. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Green. I will open up the floor to general comments on the report. Do any Members have general comments on this report? First, we have Mr. Vanthuyne.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to take this opportunity to let the committee know that I am very grateful for the work that they have undertaken over the last year or more that the committee has been put together. It has done extensive travel throughout the territory. It has held a number of public hearings to gather very important information as it relates to increasing the representation of women. I was very pleased to see that a number of the public hearings were presented to the public through various forums, in particular Facebook Live, so I was happy to tune in and listen to what a lot of different members of the public had to say, both men and women, through a number of the communities.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to really let the committee know that I commend their efforts and appreciate the information that they have presented to us here in the report. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Next, we have Mr. Testart.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, too, want to take this opportunity to commend the special committee on their work. Both this report and the previous report that was considered by the Assembly represent a great deal of time, effort, and sincere dedication to an issue that we set out to address as an Assembly on day one, which is increasing the representation of women.

As the committee noted in its interim report, it is a slow process. There are no simple solutions, and it takes this level of detailed analysis to really come to grips with this issue, which is very close to the good functioning of any representative institution, which is ensuring that it is representative of the public body that it serves.

Parliamentary reform and democratic reform are great interests of mine, and many of the models addressed show that the committee did its homework. This issue is not just one of institutions, but also one of culture, traditions, and gender roles reflected in society.

I have had the opportunity to meet some Samoan MPs through interparliamentary conferences, and as it turns out, you need to be chief before you are allowed to stand for MP. It is one of the eligibility requirements. That is my understanding, at least. Right there, you understand how difficult it can be to ensure adequate representation of minorities and women when there is a cultural component like that in place. The initiative that they took was very progressive, but also very much required for their context. Of course, the NWT has a very different social, cultural, economic, and political context, and it takes work like this to properly understand that context.

I have additional comments around some of the recommendations, but I think that this is solid work. It speaks well to the level of interest that Northerners have. One of the things that should be particularly noted about this report is some of the appendices where the committee took time to show their list of public hearings and the list of written submissions. That just shows, again, that this was very much a public process that had a lot of engagement and shows that our institution is being responsive to the concerns of Northerners and, in particular, the concerns of northern women, who have had enough with Assemblies that just simply don't reflect the gender make-up of our populations. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Next, Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to thank my colleagues and our chair for providing the leadership in terms of our travel, our meetings, and our discussions throughout the Northwest Territories communities that we had the good fortune of visiting and holding public forums and discussion. I think that that was the basic approach, trying to create at least an understanding of the issue of why women don't get elected to the territorial level, and trying to have some discussion and raised awareness of how it is that we could create, perhaps, possibilities of changing that whole issue and dilemma that we face now.

I think that that was the sole purpose of our discussion, but at the same time, we examined some changes that we thought that we could make. We did it in an interim report, and now we are concluding the final report. We wanted to make some strategic changes. I think that those recommendations that we are going to be talking about later on capture at least some of the key things that people had expressed to us, especially in the forums that we held in the communities.

I just wanted to take the opportunity to explain in my language what this whole discussion was all about, if I could, Mr. Chair. [English translation not provided]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just explained that the way that I see it, from the perspective of the people that I represent, considering some of the really deep-rooted traditional values that we have. We have a basic dilemma at this point. There are 19 MLAs, and there are only two women. In the Dene perspective, if you are going to make a decision, half of your decision-making input is not there, so you are only making half of a decision.

I don't know how to describe it or explain it in my language, but it is a matter of perception, and that is how I explained it, that half of our decision-making is not present. This was very important for me to at least share that perspective with the many people that we met during that time of our travel throughout the communities. I look forward to the ongoing discussions. Once again, I wanted to thank my colleagues and the staff that helped us out and our chair for leading the charge on this matter. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Next, we have Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will likely speak on the recommendations. For general comments here, I would like to also thank my colleagues on the committee. There were six of us on the committee, and I would also like to thank the committee staff for providing us the assistance that we needed to visit the nine communities and sat in front of well over 100 people to hear their recommendations. I think, I feel, it will work. I know already that, as we are moving into the next territorial election, we are hearing names of a lot of women that would like to become MLAs, who will be running in the territorial election. I would say that we will, we could, I suspect that we are probably going to have the highest number of women in this legislature after the next election. Throughout, the methods and as we worked our way through it led by our chair, I was not sure if something like this would actually work, and now, after seeing the report and at the conclusion of our community visits, I strongly feel that this will work and that the numbers that we are trying to achieve, we will achieve easily. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Next, we have Minister Cochrane.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to start by thanking the Speaker for bringing it forward, the idea of guaranteed seats. I want to thank our chair, MLA Green, for stepping forward and asking to be the chair for this committee. I thought it was very appropriate that it would be a woman taking on the chair position. I want to thank our staff, who did more than their share of research, were there on the road, put up with a lot of us, and did great work. Our colleagues, I want to thank them. It was very difficult, I think sometimes. We are talking about women taking over seats, half the seats ideally. Although we are not striving for that, eventually, if we are to be equally represented, in a population of 50 percent, then it would be nice to have 50 percent, so I imagine it's hard for men to actually have those conversations because it means that some of the men in these seats would be looking at losing their seat, so I recognize that.

I also want to thank the MLAs in whose regions we went because we went into their regions trying to talk to women about getting their names on the ballot, and, again, that must have been very difficult for some of those men to accept that and to be humble within that and allow us into their communities to push that because I am not sure, if we were looking a get anyone else, if we were looking for another man, if that would be as welcomed. So I know it was difficult, and I want to thank them.

I really want to say that it's critical, in my opinion it's critical, that women are equally represented. I have heard a lot of different opinions here since I have been here in the last almost four years now, and I know I have had people say to me, men come to me and say: why can't they represent women's issues? I appreciate that men are willing to be our allies. However, I am a strong advocate who says: if you don't live it, you can't know it. You know, there are a lot of issues that I have not experienced in my life, and I do not pretend that I can speak for those people. I try to use their voices whenever possible instead of my own thinking of what they should do, so I am respectful of that process.

The whole key when we started out was to find out if we were going to have special seats or not. It turned into more than that, Mr. Chair. It actually turned into: the number of people who came to these meetings, the number of women, the generation of discussion in itself I think will make a huge difference, and I am hoping that we will see this in the next election. I am looking forward to this election. I think that this committee did an excellent job. I think that it was represented fairly well. I think that it's going to make a difference in this next election.

I also want to say that, this committee -- I have never been a Regular MLA. When I was elected, I first got into a ministry, so I never experienced the committees, but, if this committee was an example of all committees that the MLAs have, then I want to say that that is a true example of consensus government because at no time did our committee argue, fight. It was not one person's voice over others. We were very respectful in it. We did not always get our way, but at no time was there fighting, and there was no showcasing. We all worked together equally in what I feel was a consensus form of government, so I really thank you for that process, as well, and for giving me that experience that I have never experienced here other than that committee. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Next, we have Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yes, lots of thank yous going around, and I too want to recognize the work of the Members who volunteered to serve on this committee. This was not something that people had to sign up for. People volunteered their time, and this was time away from their families, time away from their communities to take this work on the road, hear what people had to say. There was a lot of hard work that went into this, and I really appreciate the time of the MLAs who volunteered to do this, as I said.

The other thing that I think is unusual about this committee is that it's one of these rare creatures where Regular MLAs actually sit together with Cabinet Ministers. I think that is a good thing, not all the time maybe, but certainly in this situation I think it was great to have people from the Cabinet side and the Regular MLAs who worked together on these issues.

It's certainly a well-researched report. I had the privilege of sitting in on the public hearing that was held in Yellowknife to hear people's passion on the issues and on some of the internal committee proceedings, so I can certainly attest to the vigour of some of the debates and discussion, but I think it's a well-thought-out report with some sound recommendations.

The interim report really dealt with what we might call the low-hanging fruit and making some of the easier policy changes that we can do right now to make this a more family-friendly place and encourage policies and procedures that better meet the needs of women and young families where one of the parents might serve as an MLA. Those were all accepted. I agreed with them. This report is a little bit more forward-thinking in terms of how to bring more systemic change forward. Unfortunately, not much is going to happen in terms of the next election, but I think, if all the work that has been put into this issue by some of our colleagues in this House and others outside of the House does not lead to the kind of change that we all want to see happen, there are some specific measures recommended in here that I think will lead to the change that we need.

Once again, Mr. Chair, I want to thank all of the people who volunteered to serve on this and our staff, as well, for supporting that effort. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Mr. Nakimayak.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to thank the chair and everybody else on the committee, as well, and the staff. I know they worked hard at arranging travel and enduring times. Being Indigenous myself and the challenges we face in the small communities, I think women do have it a lot harder than we, as men. We have more accessibility to almost anything that we want, and I think naturally that is the way the structure of politics in the Northwest Territories and in a lot of places where we have a lot of Indigenous people and mixed cultures really are. I think we are making steps in the right direction.

I would like to say that this was, out of the reports that have been generated and are being generated, this is the most respectful document, and I think it will be over the term of this Assembly. This is one where there has been fair input from everybody. If you look at some of the other reports where we were actually fighting to put our own personal points on some of these reports and recommendations, I think that is why women sometimes choose not to get into politics, Mr. Chair. Politics can be very dirty, and some of the reports that are coming out are an example of that. This one, I would have to say this is quite a respectful document and has a lot of respectful names along this.

You know, going to Inuvik where we sat, we started off up in my region, in Inuvik, and hearing from the working professionals, the women who are working, some of them are fine where they are; they are community leaders; they are coaches; they are mentors, and they choose to take on responsibility and leadership roles in that manner. I hope that this report will entice, definitely encourage, more women to run during this next upcoming election in all the regions that need equal representation.

In some fields that we struggle much, mental health is one of bigger ones, I think having a female MLA, a female mayor and other leaders in different governments is key to those areas of developing policies, whether it's at the municipal level, the territorial, or the national level, we definitely need that. I see that in some of the Inuit organizations that I work with nationally and internationally. They are definitely strong leaders.

I think we need to use this model as a foundation to develop something that is going to be unique for the Northwest Territories and not follow so much everywhere else around this world but maybe match those numbers by what we can do here. Again, I would just like to say thanks to everybody for their participation and leadership in this. The outcomes, sometimes, the turnouts in some of the communities where they are harvesting this spring is hard to bring out anybody, but it shows that when people want to make a point and show up and share their opinion, there is always time for that. I would just like to say thank you to the chair and all the Members and especially the staff for this. Mr. Chair, thank you.

Thank you. There is no one further on my list. Ms. Green.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this Assembly recommends that, if the 2019 election does not meet 20 percent women representation, the 19^th Legislative Assembly will call a plebiscite to determine which of the options set out in the discussion paper is preferred by the electorate.

Thank you, Ms. Green. There is a motion on the floor. The motion is in order. To the motion. Ms. Green.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you heard in our report, we had a mixed reception to the Speaker's paper on guaranteed representation for women. We didn't have an agreement on how to move forward on that issue at this time. We decided to defer a decision about a plebiscite on guaranteed seats until after the next election and leave it in the hands of the 19^th Assembly. Of course, we hope to see an improvement in women's representation in October. As some of my colleagues have said, they feel that the time is here for that to happen.

We are also hoping that the increased focus on campaign schools, better communication about the role of MLA, and the attention that is being paid to make this an easier place for women to work will also encourage women to run. In the event there is no increase in numbers in the fall, then our hope is that the 19^th Assembly will revisit the issue of guaranteed seats. That is the purpose of this motion. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Green. To the motion. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you. To the motion.