Arthur Milnes
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jan 18/99) - "Ask David, he'll know."

The above is a phrase that's been heard often around the NWT's legislative assembly for the better part of 20 years now. It refers to the assembly's clerk, David Hamilton.

From his chair in front of the speaker, Hamilton has seen and heard just about everything territorial politics has to offer. A generation of NWT politicians has learned to rely on him for advice during the cut and thrust of legislative debate and procedure. If you have a question, he's your man.

For the past few years, his vantage point has allowed him a unique perspective to witness as the territory prepares to split into two with the creation of Nunavut.

With preparations for the upcoming Nunavut elections keeping Hamilton busy, he's also the NWT's Chief Electoral Officer. Hamilton took time out last week for a discussion with Yklife.

Yklife: So how did you arrive up North?

DH: I came with the Bay. I was a Bay boy and came with the Bay to Fort Simpson in 1970. After Fort Simpson I moved up to Aklavik and left the Bay in 1971.

Yklife: Why here?

DH: In those days the Bay still advertised in British papers, mostly Scottish papers ... I said the hell with it and applied. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I applied and lo and behold I got an interview. There was 450 or 500 applications.... I was one of the intakes in the fall of 1970 and came over.... (Once) in Winnipeg we were just told where we were going and sent there, sight unseen.

Yklife: What did you think of Fort Simpson?

DH: It was a bit of shock. Figure out getting off a plane and getting slower and smaller as you come along.

Yklife: So how does a guy go from a Bay guy to Clerk of the Assembly?

DH: Some people say once a clerk always a clerk. Thirty years later I'm still a clerk. Some people say I haven't gone very far in my career.

Yklife: A question just for our mutual friend, (Queen's University political scientist and parliamentary expert) Professor Ned Franks; is it pronounced clerk or clerk (clark). Professor Franks uses the latter.

DH: I say clerk. If you go to the Mother of all Parliaments, Westminister, they call it `clark.' It's more an English pronunciation. In Canada, all of us call each other clerks.

Yklife: Is this pronunciation a bit of Scottish independence showing on your part or colonial independence on Canada's part?

DH: Probably Canada's part I imagine.... When I got into Simpson and went to Aklavik, there was a job there as a settlement manager and I applied for that and got that. In its early days, it was moving from a settlement to a hamlet.... Before that, they were looking for settlement secretaries. That was the move from working directly for the local settlement council and going into the hamlet and becoming the secretary-manager. I applied for it and I got it.... That (job) really got me into community development.

Yklife: Were you a parliamentary or procedures junkie while growing up?

DH: In my early days I joined the Young Conservatives in Britain mostly because a girl I liked was involved. Then I didn't like what they were doing so I went and worked with the Scottish Nationalist Party and did some stuff.... That kind of got me into it.

Yklife: Did you ever go to Westminister?

DH: No, not while I was in Britain.

Yklife: But you've been there since?

DH: Yes.... Where I really got into it was working in the hamlets.... From there (Aklavik), I went to Cambridge Bay and worked around the Central Arctic.

Yklife: When did you get the job at the legislative assembly?

DH: (In) 1980 ... I came to the assembly as clerk-assistant (and was made clerk in 1981). I was the first clerk to come from a Northern perspective. I've been clerk 19 years.

Yklife: Do you have any parliamentary heroes or any great speeches you'll always recall?

DH: You listen to speeches, watch the parliamentary channel and a lot of other things. But what I find is that you sit in the house everyday ... from a procedural point of view, they can go on for hours and all of a sudden somebody says something you know is going to cause a problem and you pick up on that immediately. That takes years. I still get surprises.

All of a sudden there will be somebody who will make one hell of a speech. I'm still amazed at the speeches that come from members; what they feel they can say that they haven't felt before and the ability of certain members to bring the assembly together sometimes.... I've heard speeches in there where you could hear a pin drop.... There have been great speeches because, at the time, it was the right speech for the right time.

Yklife: You're sitting in an interesting spot with division and the creation of two different legislatures.

DH: It's been exciting.... There are only 14 clerks in the whole of Canada. We often wonder what we'd do if we all had the chance to start from square one and develop your own rules and ways of doing things and that would all be from a clerks' and procedural point of view. The element that a lot of things in the development of the new legislature (that is lacking in Nunavut) is they haven't got the political element.

Politicians themselves set their own rules.... All those issues are inherent rights.... Yes you can develop a bureaucracy and civil service, which is going very well; you can develop all the procedures for the new assembly but the element of the political leaders, the elected leaders, will come later, that will come in April. My advice to Nunavut, to the clerk-designate, is you just need to have the minimum rules there and let the assembly flow and decide how it wants to do its business.... It's an element a lot of people in Nunavut have forgotten.... Don't put everything in stone right away.

Yklife: From your chair, has it gone smoothly?

DH: Yes. From the legislative assembly perspective, yes. They have a lot of challenges; going from 10 members to 19 members.... They'll have the basic tools, rules, services and the right to make their own rules.... Members do that.... They have unique challenges facing them.

Yklife: What's going on with these Nunavut guys? There's an election going on in Nunavut. Why the hell are they still NWT MLAs and in some cases ministers?.

DH: It's unique in Canada. You cannot run for another assembly while your sitting as a member in another assembly. That's been the norm for quite a number of years now. This wouldn't have been a problem had the (Nunavut) election taken place after April 1 because we automatically lose our 10 Nunavut members on March 31.

They amended the Nunavut Act to make for an early election. If they didn't have an election until after April 1, they wouldn't have had new members until mid-June or early July before they could have had an election and sworn in their new members. They would have had a commissioner in charge for three or four months

and that's not how they wanted to start off. That was the message we got from the political leaders. That's why the Nunavut Act was amended to allow for an early election.... The legal entity of Nunavut doesn't exist until April 1 so there had to be this transition. It's unique in Canada.... We've never created a territory from an existing territory, since 1905 anyway....

These 10 (Nunavut) members will continue to be members until March 31 with full rights to come to committees or sit in the house when we meet again in March until March 31.... The ministers are still ministers, there are four of them (from Nunavut), are still ministers until March 31.

Yklife: Then we in the west will have to pick new ministers?

DH: The Western Caucus has already agreed that there should be six cabinet ministers in the western government between April 1 and October when the next election will be. They will, prior to the end of March, select, through the normal process, two more cabinet ministers ... and the Commissioner will swear them in on April 1 and then the premier will decide the portfolios.... The current Nunavut (cabinet) members have some of the major portfolios - Justice, Health, Finance, MACA.

Yklife: So how are you going to feel on April 1?

DH: I think it's an exciting time to be here. A lot of my (Canadian clerk) colleagues are very jealous. They're jealous but they're glad they're not doing it.... They're excited. I'm excited. It is definitely a change...