Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, everyone. It's my privilege, and it's a great privilege, to have the opportunity to be here this afternoon and to address this committee on some very important matters. I believe that electoral reform is a very important question, central to our form of democracy in Canada.
I promise to keep my comments brief, but first I'd like to point out that many of us here in Nunavut have a day job that sometimes complicates the ability for us to speak independently on occasions such as this. Nevertheless, I want to make it clear to the committee that I'm here today as a private citizen. I'm not in any way representing the organization I work with on a daily basis, or any other organization of which I'm an active member. The views I may express here today are mine alone.
Second, I'd like to touch briefly on my own history. I grew up and was educated in southern Canada, in the very large cities, even then, of Toronto and Montreal. My first employment following my university graduation was in the Lakeshore-West Island area, where I also lived for most of the eight years that I was living in Montreal before I came to the Arctic.
For half of my adult life, I have lived and worked in the north, initially in the Northwest Territories and for the past 17 years, since the beginning of Nunavut. For both my wife Mehrun and me, our working and living lives in the north stretch back over an almost 49-year time span. My work experience and fields of interest have included adult education, housing education, human resource development, and economic development. My wife Mehrun was a registered nurse and midwife.
I've worked closely with Inuit during all of that period, and also with other indigenous people, in all parts of the three territories.
I want to confirm Senator Patterson's observation on how major decisions have been made in the north and about how parliamentary democracy should work, at least in recent decades. The decision not to divide the Northwest Territories, as the senator has pointed out, into two territories, the Mackenzie and Nunassiaq, as it was called then, as proposed in legislation first introduced into the House in 1963, ultimately emanated from the Carrothers commission report in 1966. I'm sorry to be a little pedantic about history, but I think it's important that the idea of dividing the Northwest Territories was not new. It originally stretched back to the early sixties.
Second, the Carrothers commission, which was formed right after the legislation died on the order paper, after two years recommended not to divide the territory. I think that decision may in fact have been the last time that important and crucial changes were contemplated in any of our three northern territories without a broad public consultation process that culminated in some sort of referendum or plebiscite.
As Senator Patterson has pointed out, in Nunavut we actually have a Plebiscites Act for direct votes on community or Nunavut-wide questions, and I'll come back to this in a minute. I think it's also important, though, to emphasize that a critical aspect of the Inuit land claims process in Nunavut was the decision to work towards a parliamentary form of public government rather than Inuit self-rule.
I believe that electoral reform falls into the category of an important and serious issue that calls out for an opportunity to hear the voices of all the people, particularly the citizens of Nunavut, who have come to the party a bit late. I also understand and agree that the issues at play are complex and difficult to understand. It's not easy to explain the various options under consideration. Nevertheless, and with all due respect, I do not believe that this is reason enough to deny the people an opportunity to have a say and to then leave the matter solely to parliamentarians for a decision.
Furthermore, I believe that Parliament has an obligation to ensure that appropriate steps are taken by way of public information and education to ensure that the voters of Canada all understand the electoral options that are being considered. In my opinion, again with all due respect, this should involve more than the use of websites and travelling parliamentary committee hearings. I believe there's a strong expectation here in Canada's newest jurisdiction that something as important as changing the rules governing how federal elections will run would require a referendum and an opportunity for all citizens to vote for the process they would most favour.
If the outcome of the consultations that you have embarked on is to go ahead anyway, with just a vote in Parliament, then I agree with the Mr. Cullen's suggestion that this should, in effect, become a temporary or interim measure, to be followed at some early point down the road by further consideration, after people have had a chance to witness and experience first-hand the impact of whatever changes are brought about. This would then provide an opportunity to review and reconsider, making further modifications to electoral reform with public inputs and preferably a public vote.
It's also important to reflect on the history of electoral evolution in Canada's north. Inuit, who continue to make up the vast majority of our population here in Nunavut and in other parts of the most northerly areas of the Northwest Territories, were only enfranchised in 1948. I stand to be corrected, but I believe that the first time Inuit voters living in what is now Nunavut had an opportunity to vote in a federal election was perhaps 1953, but from my brief examination of the records, it appears that it was likely many years later that Inuit first had an actual opportunity to vote, and that was simply logistics.
As a quick aside, when I filed my first income tax return, having moved north, it was as a foreigner, as a non-resident of Canada. It was the same income tax form that was completed for citizens living abroad, so the north was sort of barely part of this country. It means that Inuit have really only taken an active role in our federal electoral process for perhaps 60 years. That is not a very long time. I know that potential members of Parliament were campaigning in parts of what is now Nunavut in the early sixties.
I had an opportunity in 1968 to see one of the candidates campaigning in Chesterfield Inlet. His campaign methods were somewhat interesting, as he distributed oranges at the meetings he held in the community. Of course, this was so that potential voters would recall his last name when they were voting, which was Bud Orange.
Mr. Chairperson, I think the committee needs to look at Nunavut as an example of how referendums or plebiscites on important matters of public interest can actually work. There have been several examples, as Senator Patterson has clearly indicated: the fusion of the NWT, the location of our capital, and gender equity in our legislative assembly. Other territory-wide decisions concerning land title and the sale of beer, wine, and spirits have also been conducted. Local decisions concerning prohibition of alcohol are also undertaken in communities from time to time.
From a personal point of view, I believe that a better initial option for Canada would be one of the two majority systems: alternative vote, as is the case in Australia, or a runoff, two-round system, such as they have in France.
I believe that many voters here in Nunavut may already think we have a majority voting system in place now, but of course that's not true, and in fact our current member of Parliament, with all due respect, did not win a majority of the votes in the last election, but just over 47% of all votes cast. One of the two majority systems I have just cited might have produced a different result here in Nunavut, and of course the same might have applied in other parts of Canada as well. We can only speculate.
I promised to keep my comments brief, so I will end my presentation here, Mr. Chairperson, but will be happy to respond to any questions the committee members might have during the question period.
Thank you.