City loses electoral boundary challenge
Judge says Yellowknife under-represented but not by enough to overturn decision by MLAs
James Goldie
Northern News Services
Friday, October 23, 2015
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The City of Yellowknife has lost its fight with the territorial government over revised electoral boundaries it says inadequately reflect the city's population in the legislative assembly.
David Connelly was one of the applicants, along with the City of Yellowknife, seeking to have the territorial government's new electoral boundaries declared invalid because of the resulting under-representation of Yellowknife residents. The NWT Supreme Court dismissed the application on Monday. - James Goldie/NNSL photo - |
NWT Supreme Court Justice Louise Charbonneau ruled against the city Tuesday, which had applied to have the new boundaries declared invalid.
In her ruling, Charbonneau acknowledged that while it is true Yellowknifers will be under-represented as a result of the new boundaries, the changes fall within a 25 per cent range of acceptable variances and consequently the GNWT is not required to provide the same level of "explicit justification" as it would had the change in representation exceeded that threshold.
Electoral districts are each supposed to have an equal number of constituents but inevitably some districts represent a greater or fewer number of people than others. For example, the Deh Cho is over-represented by 40 per cent and the newest district, Tu Nedhe Wiilideh, by 38 per cent. The seven electoral districts in Yellowknife are under-represented by about 23 per cent on average.
"The issue related to the representation of the Yellowknife voters is not new, and has always been thorny," wrote Charbonneau, recalling a 1999 case in which a group called Friends of Democracy successfully challenged electoral boundaries on the basis of under-representation for Yellowknife voters.
"But the situation was dramatically different then," wrote Charbonneau. "The electoral boundaries that were being challenged in that case would have resulted in the under-representation of one of the Yellowknife districts by 152 per cent, and about by 49 per cent."
Mayor Mark Heyck said the city has no plans to appeal the judge's decision.
"On behalf of council and myself I think we're disappointed but we certainly respect the judge's opinion on it," said Mayor Mark Heyck.
He said he and council will focus their efforts on other ways of advancing the city's interests between now and the next time the boundaries are reviewed.
The cost of the lawsuit was approximately $18,000, said Heyck.
In addition to the city, there were seven co-applicants, each a resident of one of the seven Yellowknife districts impacted by the boundary changes.
David Connelly, who lives in Old Town, was willing to be an applicant on the case because he saw the changes to his district of Weledeh, where Ndilo and Dettah were hived off and added to the old district of Tu Nedhe, which included the communities of Fort Resolution and Lutselk'e, to create Tu Nedhe Wiilideh.
"Obviously I still believe there is an imbalance and I believe that's unfair, particularly when you look at the overbalance for so many ridings outside Yellowknife," he said.
But he acknowledged the difficulty faced in overturning a decision made by MLAs in the legislative assembly.
"It was a well-reasoned judgment," he said.
