Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, would like to congratulate you on your election as Speaker. I don't want to be too long because I know a lot of Members have spoken and have articulated their positions already.
I would like to say that I am not in support of establishing a ninth position for primarily two main reasons. At this stage of our Assembly, as we lead towards division and in our consensus style of government, we have always tried to balance the East/West interest, whether it is on Cabinet, committees, in Caucus or in any position that is affiliated with the Assembly. The status quo should remain in place.
Secondly, there have been suggestions made that we could possibly finance this new Cabinet position internally. Regardless of that fact, even if we were able to do that, if we could that easily fund a Cabinet position, we should that easily be able to address our needs for job creation, housing, social programs and the other things that most of our constituents want us to address. It has been said that we expect there will be a major downsizing of government in the years to come. As my colleague, Mr. Floyd Roland, has said, we have to lead by example in this initiative.
Having said that, I know that Members have agreed that there may be a need to review this at a later date. I think that is very appropriate because we don't know what the new Premier and the new Cabinet composition is going to be at this time. We don't know what the distribution of the workload is going to be amongst the Cabinet by the new Premier and we don't know the capabilities of those Cabinet and Premier positions and how they are going to be able to handle it until we get them elected and on stream.
Having said that, Mr. Chairman, I know that the majority of Members have spoken already. I would like to propose...Sorry, that is it, Mr. Chairman.