Electoral Reform committee  Unukut. Good evening. Qujannamiik. Thank you for the opportunity to address your standing committee. Honourable chair and all the members around the table, tunngasugi. Welcome to Nunavut. My remarks may be more than two minutes, so I ask for unanimous consent in advance to b

Electoral Reform committee  Qujannamiik. Thank you very much. My name is Maatalii Aneraq Okalik, and I sit, as Elizabeth May has indicated, as the president of the National Inuit Youth Council within Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, so I represent Inuit youth across Canada. I have the opportunity now to share a b

Electoral Reform committee  I'm a lawyer. I study law, so I can't really push for something that might be going against charter rights. I understand that there are limitations in our current system that we can't do much about. The current system of senatorial elections is something that we can do something

Electoral Reform committee  Can I add something?

Electoral Reform committee  The other thing that we encounter sometimes at the ballot box is some are illiterate. We got around that in our first election, I believe, when we had pictures of the candidates on the ballot itself. In one of the elections I ran in where there were no pictures produced, a voter

Electoral Reform committee  It was spoiled, but those are the challenges that we face. We have to try to get around those barriers that people face and allow everybody to vote, whether they are illiterate or literate, in any language that may be reflected in the territory. Qujannamiik.

Electoral Reform committee  Yes, we have neighbours in Greenland who have proportional representation, and it can create instability in a small area. That's my great concern. I prefer the alternative vote model, in that it creates stability. The majority of voters express a will with regard to that individu

Electoral Reform committee  Very much so. We need to change our act, as well, to set a fixed date to reflect our cultural practices. It's fixed for four years, and whatever works for the entire country is something that.... I believe it's the third Monday of October in the current federal system, so there's

Electoral Reform committee  I don't know about you, but I think the longer it is, the more tension it creates, particularly in our own little territory. The current time required is workable, and if it is longer, it creates...we get tired of voting issues sometimes, too. I went to Hillary's campaign just

Electoral Reform committee  The reason we created Nunavut was to focus on our territory and our unique culture. I think having one MP representing all three territories would not be seen favourably by our territory.

Electoral Reform committee  I know. It was adding one more, to have one additional member—

Electoral Reform committee  It would not be much progress, because we created Nunavut to focus on our priorities, and one additional MP for the whole north would defeat that.

Electoral Reform committee  The challenge with our current system is that you can promise the moon, and then you can get elected and get the one term. The way I run my campaigns is that I look at the territory. Fortunately, I have a very good riding that reflects our territory and the populace. I work on wh

Electoral Reform committee  Most definitely. You're talking about potentially disenfranchising whole fractions of our nation, so I would insist on a vote for our country, because we're going to change it drastically if they choose to try and change it.

Electoral Reform committee  I'm Liberal, and I voted Liberal, but they have already broken some promises to Inuit. They can break this promise easily, because they broke promises to Inuit already. This is one promise they can forget about, perhaps. I have no real issues with the current system. If you hav