MLAs split over riding bill
Bill 18 given third reading, Tu Nedhe riding to be amalgamated with Ndilo and Dettah
Candace Thomson
Northern News Services
Published Friday, May 30, 2014
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The electoral riding of Tu Nedhe was sentenced to extinction Wednesday after members of the legislative assembly voted 11-7 in support of legislation merging the electoral district with a hived off portion of the Weledeh riding.
Tu Nedhe, a riding which has existed for 35 years and includes Lutsel K'e and Fort Resolution, consists of about 800 people, making it the smallest district by population in the NWT. It is 65 per cent below the average population of about 2,200 people per district.
"They're putting
us somewhere we don't belong."
- Dettah Chief Ed Sangris |
Bill 18 was given its third reading Wednesday, and will see the communities of Ndilo and Dettah removed from the Weledeh riding and lumped into a new riding with Lutsel K'e and Fort Resolution. The new riding is currently designated as NWT 3.
Dettah Chief Ed Sangris, Dettah called the decision ridiculous.
"Our land is right here. Why put us someplace else?" he said. "They're putting us somewhere we don't belong."
It has been previously reported that during visits to the communities of Dettah and Fort Resolution last year, the assembly's Electoral Boundaries Commission heard residents say they did not want this to happen. One of the main concerns was that the people of Tu Nedhe are predominantly Chipewyan, while the Yellowknives Dene speak Dogrib.
Weledeh MLA Bob Bromley spoke out against the bill during its reading on Wednesday, saying the members were ignoring the voice of the people.
"To me, this is completely unacceptable," he said. "This is even a bit colonial to start doing these things without regard to what we know or is actually happening on the ground. We seem to be again disregarding the will of the people and disregarding the guidelines."
Monfwi MLA and Education Minister Jackson Lafferty gave his entire address in Tlicho without a Tlicho translator.
Afterwards, he summarized it in English, saying the official languages of the NWT need to be represented in their ridings.
Tom Beaulieu, Tu Nedhe MLA and minister of Transportation, said the people of Tu Nedhe did not want to be amalgamated into a riding with the Yellowknives Dene in Dettah and Ndilo, and the Yellowknives did not want it either.
"The residents of Fort Resolution and Lutsel K'e speak a different language then the group in Yellowknives Dene," he said. "By combining two aboriginal groups, we will lose a culture and a language of one of the groups. There is no possibility that the Weledeh language and the Chipewyan language could be represented in this house in one riding ever into the future."
Beaulieu said some of the elders in Tu Nedhe told him that the people and the land cannot be separated.
"What we do is collective. If we have a consensus government, then this assembly must accommodate our unique, indigenous structures," he said. "There are good examples all over the world where colonizers have left us with a model to follow. We have had our own riding for 40 years and we must continue to keep our own riding."
After session, Beaulieu told Yellowknifer that he would like to see the people of the communities take the territorial government to court over Bill 18, citing special circumstances within federal legislation that allows small jurisdictions to have their own ridings due to cultural reasons.
"I'm hoping that people will take this bill to court, the people of Tu Nedhe and Weledeh, and I think they will," he said.
"Maybe they'll get together and say based on special circumstances of language and culture when you forge something, but unfortunately I think the numbers are going to stand up - but not in Yellowknife or Monfwi. If they go to court, I think everything goes to status quo, and the only thing the court may do will be to add seats."
He said it may end up being 23 seats if the people do take the bill to court.
Bill 18 votes
In favour: Frederick Blake, Glen Abernethy, Michael Miltenberger, Robert C. McLeod, David Ramsay, Bob McLeod, Robert Bouchard, Michael Nadli, Robert Hawkins, Alfred Moses, and Kevin Menicoche.
Opposed: Tom Beaulieu, Jackson Lafferty, Jane Groenewegen, Daryl Dolynny, Wendy Bisaro, Bob Bromley and Norman Yakeleya.
- Source: Legislative Assembly Hansard
