EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Other then that, I believe they said that there was occasionally a telephone bill outstanding but that they found our format easy to deal with and they actually found the support they got from the office, whenever they called about questions was fast and very helpful.
Mr. Curley: Thank you. My other question had to do with the reporting requirements of the chief electoral officer to the Assembly.
The act says 180 days, six months to present the report.
It actually it took about a year, one year I believe to complete the report, to submit it to the Assembly.
Although you alluded to why, the reasons for this delay, my point is that extending it to nine months to submit a report is really also, have you considered that it’s delaying the actual approval of the changes that might be required for the next Assembly.
We are not always sitting twelve months of the year, so if you, in fact, going to be abiding by the wording of the law, nine months, it will actually mean it will be one year and a half before the assembly actually views this.
Scheduling assembly legislation and everything else tend to also log jam within this assembly.
Is it reasonable that your asking for ninety, or extra three months, or should you consider improving, getting all the complying requirements by using the same tactics that you do for candidates, not submitting their final reports to you.
Chairman: Thank you Mr. Curley. Ms. Kusugak.
Ms. Kusugak: I would say that actually looking at the reporting time compared to the other elections offices in Canada, even what we’re suggesting is very much in the middle range.
I think we hadn’t appreciated how long it would be to get the enforcement information in, how long the enforcement process would take and the amount of time that would be consumed with dealing with candidate issues and reporting.
My colleague is suggesting that we could leave out any data about enforcement from the report, and that might be one of the few ways that it could be done in the given time.
I was sure that we would have the results of all of the enforcement questions in good time, and it’s not the way it worked out.
I was actually quite shocked on how we had to wait for quite a long time before we could publish the candidates’ financial returns in the newspapers before we had enough of the other ones in to make it worth spending the $85,000 that it cost us to put it in the newspaper.
A part of it is a learning experience from our point of view.
I can’t see that in a future election that we would have all of the information currently required to be in the report assembled under the old time frame.
I also believe that aside from the enforcement itself, because I think that not all of the reporting requirements of your office really has to do with the infractions and what not, they are only part of the requirements.
I don’t believe that we have the final results of the charges that are being laid.
If we do we would wait appeal proceeding to consider appeal process in the court proceedings.
That is not what we are talking about.
What we are talking about is once the charges are laid then I am not sure that you are involved with that member then.
My point really is whether or not there are ways to improve getting the reporting all the materials in so that the report could be submitted and the Assembly can consider changes that are needed for the next voting season.
The way it is that we might not be dealing with the actual amendment proposals.
I don’t know when, perhaps in the fall, I am not sure whether we will complete them because I do have some proposals or changes relating to the recount, because recounts, as well as the declaring a candidate a winner.
That should be handled by the local Returning Officer.
Why could they not say unofficially this is the local result subject to your verification.
Do you actually have to certify them during the election night or later so that the declaration of the winner is it not possible to have it announced locally in local ridings?
Yes, it is certainly possible to have it announced locally.
The Returning Officer is the person to whom the writ is sent and the person that declares a candidate elected.
So they are the ones on whom it finally rests.
For communications purposes because we are so far flung, and to give reassurance, etc., and because it is difficult for the Returning Officers, themselves, to get the information from where they live to the media centres then we function that it passes through us centrally, that we confirm their results.
There were in Cambridge Bay I understand from the Returning Officers that there were issues of not balancing with the number of ballots they received and the number of ballots they needed to account for, until very much the end of that election night.
That is what the reason there.
There was a similar reason in a couple of other constituencies.
Occasionally people certainly have to check their adding, they have to check for every single ballot.
Occasionally I have worked in elections long enough to know that for whatever reason people sometimes get a ballot and then they walk out the door with it because there is really no other explanation.
I have been personally involved with elections where there has not been an exact balance between the numbers of ballots that were given at the station and the number they were to count at the end of the night.
There has been a few and that is the only possible explanation.
I just know it happens.
The poor people that work at the polls worry endlessly about this.
They are very conscientious and they are people that are very much trying to do a good job in that one or two days where they are working.
Things don’t always work out for them.
When you are sitting in Rankin Inlet and they are sitting in Resolute Bay, you can only help them so much.
You can help with the process and you can’t help them with their immediate problem.
There may be no solution for their immediate problem.
Someone may have just walked out with the ballot.
It is a difficulty and something that we’ll work towards improving all the time.
My last point is I really believe we have to address the voters.
The voters are not always local Inuit, not many of them wanted to know exactly who the winner is, genuine winner, local winner.
The second one is the press, who are we serving, the press or the local voters.
That’s what I’m trying to get at, there has to be I believe one address for the locals where they know exactly who the winner is rather than waiting to having a member from Cambridge Bay sitting on a small stool for an hour and half.
If we’re going to do that again we have to make sure that CBC has a better stool than they have made available to him.
I think it’s possible to address two, one are the voters locally, one is the press who your office appear to be entertaining more than the local voters, and I really believe that we can do both ways; do a good job locally, announce locally through local radio, who the winner is, the public taking part in celebration instead of waiting for Iqaluit Central to announce.
Did you want to respond to that?
Ms. Kusugak: There is no reason at all that is not done locally if the local radio is on at the time when the results are ready and if it can be arranged.
Of course, as we know, it’s unpredictable, some results are available in an hour and some results are available in three hours.
I can’t control that.
There would be no reason in the world that local radios wouldn’t convey to the people in those communities what the results are directly after returning officer has them.
Mr. Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A couple of weeks ago I was reading a media report about the Yukon and I noted that there is an Member of the Legislative Assembly over there who is a member of the governing party.
He owes over one hundred thousand dollars to the government through a loan or something through one of his businesses.
At the hamlet elections, at the hamlet level in Nunavut, if people run for elections and if they owe five hundred dollars to the hamlet, then they are declared ineligible to run unless they repay that money.
At the territorial election level if a candidate owes money to the Government of Nunavut I don’t think they are ruled ineligible.
I’m wondering why there is an inconsistency at the territorial levels of government where you can run for elections if you owe a lot of money to government or to a crown agency, such as the Qulliq Energy Corporation or some other agency, yet at the hamlet level, if you run for mayor or councilor you can’t run.
Ms. Kusugak, if you could answer that for me.
Mr. Orr: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It’s a very good question and it raises issues of conflict of interest and so on.
I know that I’ve done work on municipal legislation here in, actually in the Northwest Territories, which was the origin of the legislation here, there are complaints about that particular provision in the Local Authorities Elections Act and there is some desire to change it.
When the current Act was drafted these issues were discussed internally of course with Ms. Kusugak and also in discussions with Member Services Board which went through the Act in total.
And than of course when it was also debated in committee of the whole here, it was felt that there should be as few restrictions as possible on candidacy.
That of course is open to second thoughts in the light of other experiences but, that I think is generally the idea that there should be as few limits on candidacy and if there is money owing, that is something that would not necessarily preclude a person from being a good Member of the Legislative Assembly but given the Integrity Act and code of ethics.
Mr. Peterson: I’m not sure that clears my question because I could say the same thing at the hamlet level.
If someone owes two hundred fifty, or five hundred dollars, that doesn’t preclude them from being a good councillor or a good mayor.
Yet, because they owe that money and it is quite difficult to raise money for some people, that would preclude them from being a hamlet councillor.
Yet owing the same amount to the Government of Nunavut, you’re free to run as Member of the Legislative Assembly and possibly become a minister.
I’m not sure why there can’t be some consideration of that in the territorial legislation.
Ms. Kusugak: I think Mr. Orr would like to address this, but I don’t see why, this is the Assembly’s legislation, if that is the wish of the Assembly, then that could be an amendment put forward through the management services board to come forward.
Chairman: Did you want to add to that Mr. Orr?
The Local Authorities Elections Act actually was one of the bills I drafted for the Government of the Northwest Territories some years ago.
The provision in there on owing money to the hamlet or the municipal corporation was something put in at the request of the department responsible, which was Municipal and Community Affairs.
This Assembly had a chance to look at the issue generally when dealing with the Nunavut Elections Act many years later, and decided not to follow that provision.
I know that there is pressure to make a change to the Local Authorities Elections Act here in Nunavut.
As Ms. Kusugak says, if the Assembly feels it wants to bring in a provision like that, then by all means.
Recommendations were made by the chief electoral officer in this report.
Presumably those will be considered and other appropriate changes to the Act can also be considered.
Chairman (interpretation): We don’t have a quorum at the moment.
Thank you, Mr. Arreak for getting back to our Committee of the Whole meeting.
I want to ask Ms. Kusugak some questions about her recommendations on page H-1 of twenty three.
You’re recommending that 15(2), the “electoral quotient for Nunavut equals the number of voters on the most accurate current voters’ list for Nunavut divided by the number of constituencies”.
I’m wondering, Ms. Kusugak, how you’re going to obtain the most accurate current voters list for Nunavut.
How much do you estimate that would cost?
Chairman: Thank you Mr. Peterson, Ms. Kusugak.
We maintain the voters list, I believe I mentioned we have an electronic permanent voters’ list, and it was last updated at the time of the municipal elections and will be updated on a more continuous basis when the returning officers have access to the web-based system by the broadband.
It will be largely up to an individual voter to assume they’re on the voters list, although the returning officer will several times a year request, make calls to the community to make sure that people who have just turned eighteen register themselves and to remind the community that it’s their responsibility to set up registration stations at community events or community areas.
We don’t anticipate doing further full scale enumerations as we did for the first election.
We will in places where we believe that there is a large population shift, for instance in Iqaluit, we know experienced a large population turnover so we will expend more energy in updating that and the returning officer tells us that there has been a large change in their population, their constituency, by their knowledge of the community situation than we would go the extra effort to cause all people to be registered.
Could you perhaps tell us in your opinion how realistic it is for each community in Nunavut to have their own Member of the Legislative Assembly?
Ms. Kusugak: I’m reluctant to speak about boundaries commission issues, as I mentioned to you before I was on the Boundaries Commissioner previously and I had the experience of visiting all communities and hearing different sides and making recommendations from that basis so I’m afraid I might slip back into Boundaries Commission member.
I would prefer that Mr. Orr handle this, although I could say that I think that process we outlined in the Nunavut Elections Act, for making these adjustments really gives the Boundaries Commission members a strong basis for looking at requests and for discussing these things with communities.
If they look at the requirements, the things they need to juggle, the community interests, the geography, the transportation and communication between places and listen to the people speaking at meetings and balance that off with the costs of having an Member of the Legislative Assembly and other democratic principals, which are basically representation by population than I believe they’ll come to a good result, but I would rather leave that to the discussion of the Boundaries Commissioner.
Chairman: Thank you. Mr. Orr.
The factors for the Boundaries Commission to consider are set out in the Act in section twenty one.
The electoral portion is the one that is the governing factor and that is the populations for constituencies should be a similar size so that if a very small community had it’s own Member of the Legislative Assembly representing it than that would mean that a large community such as Iqaluit would have the corresponding larger number of Member of the Legislative Assembly’s representing it.
You could have a proportional increase in Members of the Legislative Assembly so that if one small community of five hundred people had an Member of the Legislative Assembly than Iqaluit would have correspondingly huge number of Members of the Legislative Assembly which would completely change the character of this Assembly.
I think that is nothing theoretically wrong with that expect that you would have an enormous implications on the costs and just the character of this House.
Thank you, Ms. Kusugak and Mr. Orr for that answer.
It is a similar situation that exists in the Yukon where I think ten of their Members of the Legislative Assembly, even though it is a party system.
Ten of their Members of the Legislative Assembly come from Whitehorse out of the 15 or 16, so some of the smaller communities around the Yukon are less represented.
Ms. Kusugak made some comments about being rather reluctant to talk about Boundaries Commission.
We don’t have a Boundaries Commission at the moment.
So I am wondering when we do have a Boundaries Commission if Ms. Kusugak feels that the Chief Electoral Officer has a role to play working with them?
If I might comment first about the Yukon.
From my meetings with my colleagues I was quite surprised to discover that actually two thirds of the population of the Yukon is in Whitehorse.
That sort of alters your thinking about how the whole territory works.
Imagine that two thirds of the population of Nunavut being in Iqaluit.
Our thinking would be really different about how we operated.
No, I have no problems of the Boundaries Commission because my role is very well carefully defined in the legislation.
We provide mapping services to the Boundaries Commission.
We provide office space for them, and we are responsible for drafting the Bills that results from their work.
I feel that is an excellent role for us because we are able in our office to produce the maps.
We know some of the technical issues surrounding changes that need to be made by this Boundaries Commission.
For instance in Iqaluit we now have constituencies that go across lots.
The sort of technical changes that definitely need to be made, even if no other change was made by future Boundaries Commission.
So administratively no, I have no problems with working with the Boundaries Commission.
This might be a question for Mr. Orr.
In Nunavut, we have three regions.
In the Kitikmeot we have three Members of the Legislative Assembly.
We have Members of the Legislative Assembly representing four communities, plus two smaller communities.
We have an Member of the Legislative Assembly, my colleague who is on my right, Steve Mapsalak from Repulse Bay, but he represents Kugaaruk.
So when people ask us how many Members of the Legislative Assembly that we have in the Kitikmeot, we always say three and a half.
In the Kivalliq they say five and a half.
So Mr. Mapsalak, he has to work in two regions.
I am not sure how he deals with that.
In the future I am sure that Mr. Mapsalak will have some more input into this.
In the future would it not make more sense to for the community of Pelly Bay, or Kugaaruk, to have its own Member of the Legislative Assembly and combine two communities over there.
There would be less of this overlapping between two regions.
I presume that is probably one of the items that are dealt with in the Act.
The means of communications in various parts of Nunavut, in fact the administrative boundaries on a regional basis, those things are all factors that a Boundaries Commission can take a look at.
We of course in the last general election inherited the same constituencies that were established previously so the Act itself had no influence over the existing boundaries.
Presumably when the new Boundaries Commission takes office, that is presumably one of the things that they would look at.
Thank you, Mr. Orr for that comment.
Just moving on to page H-2 of 23, prisoner voting.
You made some recommendations.
I was wondering if any prisoners voted in the 2004 election.
Do you have that information?
Ms. Kusugak: Mr. Chair, I don’t have specific information on the number of prisoners that voted, because there ballots were special ballots and handled as would be students or people that were away on vacation.
I do know the significant number of ballots were sent to Baffin Correctional Centre, and I do know the number were sent south, but we don’t keep that kind of statistics that would separate out whether things were coming back would be from students or etc.
We have a very small population in Nunavut, so we go to some length to ensure that the voting is kept secret, and how a person has cast there ballot, we need to be careful not to be identifying very often.
You know there may be only two people voting by special ballot from a constituency and if you start knowing one was a student and one was an inmate then you would know more information then you perhaps wanted to.
Thank you Ms. Kusugak.
My son voted from the university in a special ballot.
He thought it worked quite well for him, so he was able to get his vote in.
Do you know if you had any complaints from any inmates who might have wanted to participate in the election.
Were there any complaints at all in how the system worked for them?
Ms. Kusugak: we didn’t have any complaints at all, and we found the officials at the correctional centers and the prisons quite very receptive to making sure that people got their ballots if they wanted them, that they were aware.
We produce quite a lot of information brochures and posters that went to all of these places and I believe were helpful in the process.
Thank Ms. Kusugak for that information, I was looking at appendix E, on the Election Act, complaints to the RCMP.
It’s quite a description of the process of voting practice, the financial practice involved in the candidates’ financial compliant agency.
As a follow-up to my colleague in Rankin Inlet who talked about the paper work, there is a section in your report called the disqualification of candidates, section fourteen, page H-12, 23.
I was wondering, how many people have you ruled ineligible to run in the next general election, and have they been made aware of this?
Chairman: Thank you Mr. Peterson. Ms. Kusugak.
The number is twenty nine, and we did not have a written process that describes if I was to contact people and say to them you are not eligible to run in the next election.
It seems as though that maybe it was unsolicited information or advice, I don’t know beyond that, that’s the simple answer to your questions, it seems a letter coming out of the blue saying you’re not eligible to run in the next election seemed a little pre-emptory, people might not be the slightest bit interested in running in the next election, and whether they would still have that letter four years from now when the election was about to become a fact, I’m not sure, it has been on my mind, wondering when would be the appropriate time to indicate that, because we don’t want people to be publicly embarrassed when they go to put in their nominations and they’ve been discovered are not eligible.
Perhaps the time just when the election date is getting to be two or three months in advance then I would write to them and remind them that they are not able to do so.
It is of course, as Mr. Orr points out is in the report, although I don’t suppose that the public, by in large, are sitting around at night reading my report, unlikely to.
Chairman: Thank you, Ms. Kusugak. Mr. Peterson.
I know as Members of the Legislative Assembly we had to file all our paperwork quite soon after the election so we could be sworn in and sit as Members of the Legislative Assembly.
We had to get all the paperwork and financial stuff in order.
Then it was all published in the newspapers for the public to read.
I think that there was some information, I can’t recall off the top of my head, but there seemed to be some information in those newspaper publications that indicated that there were some problems with the elections related to providing the paperwork from the Member of the Legislative Assembly candidates that didn’t win.
There were some delays.
I think there are some members of public who are still wondering what the eventual resolution was to all that.
I know it is in your report, but as you mentioned it is highly unlikely that anyone’s is going to be sitting around reading it.
I was wondering if you feel, in the spirit of openness and transparency that perhaps that information should be made public so that people know what the final disposition or resolution was to the financial accounting under the Elections Act.
I have never anticipated the tremendous cost of putting this information as required by the Act.
I mentioned before that it was $85,000 to go in the newspaper to resolve the situation.
Further update the course would be expensive as well.
What we have suggested as part of our amendment for the next election put a notice in the newspaper advising people of how they can find out this information and also that it will be published in the website.
By in large, a lot of the people who are looking for financial details will look there.