SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
City advocates are again pushing to get Yellowknife more seats in the legislative assembly.

Justice minister David Ramsay says the boundaries were already debated in the legislative assembly. He rejected the city's request to question the constitutionality of the new boundaries before the Supreme Court.

Although roughly half the population of the NWT lives in the territorial capital, the city is represented by only seven of the territory's 19 MLAs.

Despite a request from city council, Justice Minister David Ramsay revealed on Tuesday a decision not to question the constitutionality of the way the ridings are divided.

Following the GNWT's passage of Bill 18 in May - which rejigged electoral boundaries but retained the same number of ridings - council sent a letter to Ramsay asking him to pose a question to the NWT Supreme Court about the constitutional status of Yellowknife's representation in the legislative assembly.

"The numbers in the legislative assembly have the effect of devaluing Yellowknifers' votes," said Mayor Mark Heyck.

"We felt Yellowknife was underrepresented in the territorial context and requesting a referral to the Supreme Court would be a good first step."

The question would have been posed under the Legal Questions Act, a rarely-used piece of legislation that lets the Supreme Court rule on an issue without a lawsuit.

The city's request was rejected by the Department of Justice.

"The boundaries were already debated when we passed Bill 18 and the legislature chose to go with one of the scenarios set out by the Electoral Boundaries Commission," said Ramsay.

The boundary commission convened in 2012 to advise the legislative assembly on Bill 18.

Bill 18's redrawing of electoral boundaries, Ramsay said, means that no Yellowknife riding has a population more than 25 per cent greater than the territorial mean, a limit set by the Supreme Court of Canada and calculated by dividing the territory's population by the number of ridings.

He also added that the decision in Bill 18 was not final.

"We'll have another commission eight years from now," he said. "So if change is required, the commission will look at it again."

This is not good enough for former city councillor David Wind, who is working with Friends of Democracy, a group that in 1999 successfully challenged Yellowknife's political underrepresentation following the creation of Nunavut.

The court challenge led to three ridings being added - two in Yellowknife and one in Hay River.

At the time of that challenge, several of the Yellowknife ridings exceeded the 25 percent limit.

Wind said that even if all of the city's ridings are now within the limit, it's still unfair that some of them have close to double the population of other ridings in the NWT.

"When the city is underrepresented to the extent that it is, the voice of the MLAs representing the city is muted," said Wind.

For him, he said, it's mostly a question of fairness. But there are also a number of practical implications of underrepresentation which he said he witnessed as a city councillor.

"There are a lot of frustrations trying to find some way to deal with the social issues that need to be addressed in Yellowknife when it isn't really in the mandate of the city, nor did we have the resources to address the problems," he said.

Heyck said he agrees.

"As the largest city and the center of programs and services, we see an inflow of Northerners from other communities," he said. "This puts pressure on the city and we feel the dynamic would be different with more representation in the legislative assembly."

According to Heyck and Wind, both city council and Friends of Democracy are considering a number of options in the wake of Ramsay's decision, including another legal challenge similar to the one in 1999.

"Hopefully we'll be able to work with the city on this one," said Wind. "But if they don't want to proceed, there's a chance we may do so on our own."

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