Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

NNSL (July 23/99) - Today marks the final day for the government operations committee to review Bill 15, an act that alters electoral boundaries in Yellowknife and around the North.

The legislature is set to sit next week, largely to deal with the committee report on the bill and to potentially give it a final reading.

Though committee chair Roy Erasmus was unavailable for comment because he was in Vancouver for the Assembly of First Nations' conference, many MLAs believe the bill is set to pass.

"The government's solidly on-side and I've never run into a case where the government has changed their mind on a bill they've introduced," said Yellowknife South MLA Seamus Henry.

While in the committee stage, Northerners have had their say on the bill in public hearings in Yellowknife, Fort Simpson, Rae-Edzo, Inuvik, Hay River and Fort Smith.

The bill creates three new seats in Yellowknife and one each in Hay River and Inuvik.

It also changes the Executive Council Act to eliminate 10 current electoral districts in what is now Nunavut, alters the Deh Cho riding to include Enterprise and makes minor adjustments to language.

"It's not a case of Œwhat can we put in here that's politically acceptable,'" said Henry before noting how judicial rulings pretty much require the bill for the legislature to be constitutional.

Bill 15 was drafted after a contentious legal battle between the Yellowknife Friends of Democracy and the NWT Aboriginal Summit.

Their debate focused on whether electoral boundaries should respect the equality of voting power of each individual, or whether giving urban ridings more seats would diminish the voting clout of aboriginal people under Section 25 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Section 35 of the Constitution Act which both deal with aboriginal rights.

On March 5, Justice Mark de Weerdt ruled in favour of the Friends of Democracy and declared two Yellowknife ridings and the Hay River riding invalid because the population of those districts were more than 25 per cent higher than the average population of all ridings.

On June 16, three NWT Court of Appeal justices denied the NWT Aboriginal Summit the right of appeal because the "questions and solutions (in this case) are related more to political forums than legal ones."