Thank you. To the motion. The honourable Member for Yellowknife North, Mr. Ballantyne.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I, too, was part of drafting the statement that was read by the leader of OMC this morning. I stand by that statement. I had something to do with some of the stronger terms in that statement. The Caucus gave the Premier the power of discipline. Like my honourable colleague, not just once but twice I've supported the concept of the Premier picking their own Cabinet. That hasn't been successful. The Premier indicated to us in Ordinary Members' Caucus that she had confidence in the Minister at this point. I'll give the Premier and the Minister the benefit of the doubt. I think the choice and the accountability is that of the Premier. I won't be voting for or against this motion but I want to publicly state that if I'm not happy with the decisions of the Premier for any of her Cabinet Ministers, that in the fall session I will vote to take away that right of discipline from the Premier. I'm holding the Premier accountable for the discipline of all of her Ministers and will be watching closely how she exercises that power. I will abstain from this motion. Thank you.

Thank you. To the motion. The honourable Member for Iqaluit, Mr. Patterson.

Madam Speaker, I would like to say that I admire Mr. Gargan for having the courage of his convictions to bring this motion forward and Mr. Antoine to second it. I know that wasn't an easy decision. I know that, when we work closely together in this Assembly, it is difficult to be hard on one another. Perhaps that is one of the weaknesses in our system. We tend to be kind to one another in many difficult situations.

Whatever the result of the vote today, I think it is appropriate that the matter not be skated over and be dealt with here today. It has been on everyone's minds for some months and I am sure, most particularly, the Member for Baffin Central, with whom I sympathize. I have been in the same situation she is in now. Once, a motion of non-confidence was put against me. Once, a motion of non-confidence was threatened to be put against me. I understand what she is going through. I think, when all is said and done, it will have been appropriate to bring the matter to a head today. I admire Mr. Gargan for saying that the matter, in his view, will have been put to rest.

I think we all are concerned about work-load. I understand, having been on Cabinet, the pressures that are on Ministers. I have seen Mr. Pollard hobbling around on his cane at times.

Mr. Patterson, could I remind you to make your comments relevant to the motion that is on the floor.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I think that part of the motivation for the motion, according to the mover, was a concern about the inequitable distribution of work-load. I want to say briefly on that point, Madam Speaker, that I think this is something we should be concerned about. I think the government has put on itself a very ambitious time table. I formed the conclusion, when I was Minister of Health and Social Services long ago, that it would be impossible or extremely difficult to amalgamate the two departments. I became convinced that it was going to be, in itself, a massive undertaking. Set aside income support reform, dealing with sexual abuse, suicide and the alcohol and drug issues. That alone is a full-time occupation if it is going to be done well.

With respect to the new Ministers in Cabinet, it will be a full-time occupation for even an experienced Minister. The problem being, Madam Speaker, that when you have two bureaucracies discussing jurisdictions, responsibilities, amalgamations and downsizing, you have to be a strong leader in order to make progress because of the nature of bureaucracies.

I don't want to get off track, Madam Speaker, but I believe that it is the Premier and Members of Cabinet who know better even than myself as an ordinary Member whether they can carry on with the work-load they have over the next number of months and handle all of the agenda items on their plate with the mix of strengths and weaknesses that there are now on Cabinet. We see the Ministers perform in question period, in committees, but we don't see them doing their day-to-day work. My position is, which is similar to Mr. Dent's, I defer to the Premier and Members of her Cabinet as to whether or not they think the present mix of experienced and new Members is adequate to undertake the work remaining in the life of this session.

Madam Speaker, I am going to be voting so as to allow the Premier and Cabinet to make this decision. I think if the Premier and the Cabinet stand up and vote against the motion, then, to me, that will be a clear indication that the Premier and her colleagues have decided that they can carry on and handle the high expectations of the people of the Northwest Territories and ordinary Members here. I think the ball rests with the Cabinet and particularly with the Premier, Madam Speaker.

I do recall that, in 1985, when there was a similar motion also made by Mr. Gargan, and also difficult for all of us to deal with, the Cabinet of the day which I was a part of decided that there would be a free vote. I know Cabinet has met on this issue just not too many minutes ago. Perhaps they have taken some position. I am very interested to find out what that position is. We will soon know. I would welcome the Premier's thoughts on this matter.

I would like to close by saying that, whatever the result today, I would like to assure the Premier that she has my full support for taking the disciplinary measures and the performance monitoring measures as she sees fit, provided it is done in the spirit of fairness and with her very best information available to her. I think it is the Premier who knows best, whether the situation is manageable or not. I have been in her shoes. I know that, sometimes, there are matters that cannot be discussed in the Legislative Assembly, that are factors in the Premier's judgment of the performance of the Ministers, matters that are confidential, Cabinet privileged issues, which we don't know about and really have no right to know about in this House.

I do think it would be a terrible setback to the evaluation of responsible government and the office of the leader of the elected executive, the Government Leader and now the Premier, if we were to have to decide this fall that somehow this responsibility for disciplining and monitoring Ministers should fall back on the Members of this Assembly. I think that would be a step backwards. I think we all want to see the Premier have that authority and have the courage to exercise it, if required. I, for one, would respect the Premier's action if she should take it today or in future.

Madam Speaker, I have taken some brief time to consult with some valued constituents on this matter. I think the general advice I got was that, even though -- when I was in this situation myself as a Minister -- the judgment of the House and the honourable Members which I respected was rather strong and perhaps, in the view of some of my constituents, rather harsh, my trusted advisors have suggested that it is a complicated matter, a difficult job. The Premier knows more about this issue than any of us. Being a Member for Baffin and being a neighbouring constituent of the honourable Minister who, believe it or not, wants to cultivate good relations with her constituents, I believe I should leave the matter to the Premier and the Cabinet. So, after some consideration over months and particularly during the last number of hours, I'm going to be like Mr. Dent and vote so as to allow the Premier and Cabinet to make this decision. Thank you.

Thank you. To the motion. The honourable Member for Natilikmiot, Mr. Ningark.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you very much. Madam Speaker, I am a messenger in this case, but not a killer. I believe that Madam Premier, when she met with OMC, indicated that she's satisfied with the performance of the Minister at this point in time. She indicated that there has been some improvement in the performance the Minister in question, in this case, Ms. Rebecca Mike.

Madam Speaker, there has been some speculation that in OMC and Caucus people talked behind closed doors about whether to get rid of Rebecca Mike from the portfolio. This has gone on, not only in OMC, but also on the Cabinet side. I would like to thank the mover of the motion, Mr. Gargan, and the seconder of the motion, Mr. Antoine, for giving us the opportunity to talk about this openly and not behind closed doors.

---Applause

Madam Speaker, I believe in giving my colleague another chance to see another day, for my Creator has given me another chance so many times in the past so that I can stand up and talk on this matter. Madam Speaker, like my colleague from the Kitikmeot region, Kelvin Ng, I will be voting against the motion. But, again, I would like to express my appreciation for the mover and the seconder of the motion. Thank you very much.

Thank you. To the motion. The honourable Member for High Arctic, Mr. Pudluk.

(Translation) Thank you, Madam Speaker. I would like to make a brief comment on the motion. This is not the first time that I've been in this situation. This has come up about three times since I became a Member in 1975, when we tried to remove a Minister from the Cabinet. I appreciate that the motion was put on the floor so that we can comment on the motion, so that our constituents can hear.

I think that in the future, it will be difficult at times when the Premier is able to remove Ministers from the Cabinet on her own. In some cases, it would be fine if she is given that power. We all think differently. I'm sure some of us would be very unhappy if the Premier removed a Minister while Members approved of that particular Minister. A motion would probably be introduced if a Premier is able to remove a Minister and we didn't approve.

We all know today that the Premier can remove a Minister for logical reasons. We all witnessed that when she removed a Minister before. But, if there isn't a legitimate reason, then she can't remove a Minister from the Cabinet. If she removed a Minister we approved of, I'm sure most of the Members would be unhappy about that decision. I don't want to wait until the fall. If we remove Ministers from Cabinet just when they're getting to know their responsibilities, those people who consider running for Cabinet would have those setbacks. I won't be supporting the motion. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you. To the motion. The honourable Member for Amittuq, Mr. Allooloo.

(Translation) Thank you, Madam Speaker. We all know now that it is a very heavy work load to be a Minister, especially with her portfolio. We want to move forward as a government. We started in 1967 with an appointed council, with the Commissioner in charge of the council. Even when we started to have elected Members, the Commissioner was in charge. But now we select our own Speaker, Premier and we can now say we're all elected.

Madam Speaker, up to now the Premier hasn't had the authority to remove a Minister. I feel that the Premier, as we said to her before, should discipline the Ministers and remove Ministers if she has a legitimate reason. We have now given her the authority to remove a Minister and the Premier should be responsible for that. She said that she is happy with the work of the Minister in question right now. The Minister in question has said she was happy with her job, as Mr. Patterson and Mr. Dent said. I won't be voting on this because I am sure this can be solved with Cabinet. I think the Premier can do what she thinks. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you. To the motion. Madam Premier.

Madam Speaker, I, too, will say that it took courage to bring the motion on to the floor. I fully realize that this topic has been discussed other than in this House. I want to assure the Member, as well, by changing the name from Government Leader to Premier did not extend any further powers to my position; it was merely a name change.

I, too, in the past have suggested that if we wanted to take a further evolution on responsibilities that the Premier should also be allowed to pick the Ministers. However, our decision together was to continue with the process. As a result, the responsibility, that I take very seriously and which has been put into my hands, is to make sure the job gets done to the best of the ability that we have. When the rating process was put in place what really didn't happen was a way on how the Members wanted to monitor this. One of the concerns they had was using the word defensive when a question was placed to the honourable Member. In my discussions, I believe this is an area where there was great improvement. I think the Members will understand, as well, when you're new and when there are so many people who have a great deal of experience that you have to answer to, you do have a feeling of defensiveness. You feel that perhaps it's a new area that you've taken and it's very difficult.

There's been a question of work-load. As Members know, in Canada, in many places in the world, and in the Northwest Territories, people are changing their focus, people are moving much more quickly to know and feel that, whether it's constitutionally, or with rights on programs, there is a demand for delivery. A number of Members who have had experience before will realize when we discuss portfolios, one of the most critical areas that people have an opposition to taking on a responsibility is to health and mainly to social services because it's always been determined, particularly social services, that this is an area where you were dealing with the end result of social breakdown, the end result of people evolving and feeling not part of the system so therefore struggling to take part. In that struggle to take part, people question their own ability to be worthwhile citizens. Therefore, this portfolio, although it may appear small in size, is an area which affects many of the people who have ended up at the bottom of the ladder.

I know many of us have been in a situation where... we've been a privileged group of people where we've been able to take part in the educational system, maybe we've had parents that supported us more, maybe we had communities that had more support, but we have to realize that times are changing and people are demanding more and more from the government to lend support in areas where the families should be there, where the communities should be there. People are demanding those changes to try to reflect that and give that support back to community, back to families. When you do that it has to be understood there has been a great deal of stress and strain in that area pulling on people's emotions, pulling on people's self-esteem, pulling on people's ability to make a living, pulling on people's ability to feel good about themselves. I know there have been questions about work-load. This is a very heavy work-load. In dealing with clinical areas of some program delivery, it's much easier to measure success, measure action against the final output as it represents individuals. This is hard to measure, it's difficult to measure.

I want to bring to your attention some of the things that have happened in the last little while. Mind you, this is not our work ourselves but has been cooperative work with the standing committees, with people who have taken much interest in the social well-being of Northwest Territories residents. In the last while what we've done under the direction and involvement of the Minister, and these things sometimes can not be translated and sometimes go astray in measuring whether a person is reacting or responding to the wishes of the Legislative Assembly.

Before us, we have a Guardianship and Trusteeship Act. We've been struggling with that for ten years or more. We've been struggling with the Aboriginal Custom Adoption Recognition Act for many, many years to say something of value to traditional people and how they do things, how do we give it recognition? We come to you with an income reform package and this has been done with the involvement of the Minister and the particular person that we're talking about. The staff housing strategy has not gone away or been developed without a great deal of pain. The youth initiative program is something that has come to fruition. The child welfare reform, response to the Special Committee on Health and Social Services. I know in one of the responses it was said that the Minister wasn't responsive, but at that time we weren't able, because of the cross-section of that responsibility and reaching other departments, to have a comprehensive report and response.

The alcohol and drug workers' salaries have been looked at. The strategic plan for alcohol and drug services, the social services human resource plan, the training program for family violence workers and shelters, the solvent abuse strategy, the adolescent solvent abuse pilot programs. These are things that have been brought forward in the last little while and these are issues that have been on the table previously over a long period of time. I believe that some of these areas would not have happened if it wasn't for the dedication of the Minister that's responsible. It took a great deal of involvement and listening to people to get to that stage.

Madam Speaker, I feel that at this time there has been improvement in this Minister's responsibility to the specific area that she's responsible for. Thank you.

Thank you. To the motion. The honourable Member for Inuvik, Mr. Koe.

Mahsi, Madam Speaker. I've been following the discussions today with a lot of interest and I've been obviously very interested in this area since last fall when we went through the mid-term review. I was one of the ordinary Members who tried to influence some action last November, once the review was completed, but even before the review, and once the review was done.

Today in this House I have not heard one Member stand up and speak in support of the Minister in question. Not one Member. The focus today has been on the Premier and on her ability to lead and provide leadership. Most Members have expressed that opinion and their support of the Premier. I think we have all been thinking about this a great deal. Many of us are procrastinating a great deal on this issue as to what we do. We have been doing this since last fall. The comments that were made today and during this past week in our back room discussions are all the same ones that we went through last fall.

In terms of the Premier exercising the authority to remove Ministers, I think only once in this past two and a half years has she done that where she asked a Minister for his resignation.

I support the actions of the mover and the seconder in getting this out in the open. That took some courage. I certainly support the move to do that and to be able to discuss this publicly. The Minister in question, after the mid-term review, has stated publicly because we had given her a failing grade that the Members put me in and the Members have to take me out. I think that was in several newspapers and I heard it personally. I honestly believe that it is up to us as Members to exercise some responsibility and vote in the best way we can. I think democracy has to take its course and it is going to happen one way or another today. We have to live by the results. I don't think anybody should take any of this personally. It is one person, one vote. I think the people who are abstaining are doing so because they are supporting the Premier and want the Premier to make a decision one way or another. We will live with it. I, personally, will vote in favour of the motion. Mahsi.

Thank you. To the motion. The honourable Member for North Slave, Mr. Zoe.

Thank you. I just want to advise Members, by the authority vested in me by Motion 4-12(6), we will continue past the ordinary time that we generally set until we feel the business of the House is completed. To the

motion. The honourable Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Gargan, closing remarks.

Madam Speaker, I have listened with interest to the Members. I want to thank the Members who are supporting me. I also want to thank the Members who are being honest enough to vote against it and also the Members who are abstaining. This is a controversial issue. I realize that, Madam Speaker. Even though we say sometimes we are a consensus government, when it comes to controversial issues, it is almost predictable who will vote for it, abstain from it and who will vote against it. Any kind of motion that is diplomatic, nice and easy, or whatever you want to call it, gets unanimous consent. But when we take on a controversial issue like this, we should maintain some kind of integrity in this House and among the Members too. This is an issue that is far too big to ignore.

I say to ordinary Members that we have dwelt on this issue for a couple of weeks now and we've wasted our time, a lot of our time, trying to address this issue. The only solution we could find was to make a nice little statement against the Premier. But, we really haven't addressed the issue, and that is, whether or not certain Ministers can take on certain responsibilities.

The other issue, Madam Speaker, is that during the next year a lot of committee Members are going to be tied down with committee work on the government's behalf. I just cannot see ordinary Members running after Ministers, doing follow-up work, while they should be out there doing their own work and committee work too. So, whatever happens, a Member has to be able to travel and not worry about what is going to happen at the Executive level. They should be able to travel and say, this Minister will follow up on my concerns.

I want to tell all the Members here, and especially the ordinary Members, that I'm not after the Minister's job. I'm also not afraid of the Minister or afraid to address this issue in public. I'm not going to be afraid because I want to do certain projects or perhaps I have been asking for little favours and I'm afraid I will lose them. This goes beyond what you are going to get in capital allocations. This goes beyond whether or not you're going to get in next fall. This goes beyond that. It is a situation about whether we, as Members, the 24 of us, can carry out our work without overburdening each other. I see myself perhaps being overburdened by a Minister who maybe cannot carry out her duties.

Madam Speaker, the other thing I want to say, too, is I'm not on any of the Executive's consultation lists. I've been a Member now for ten years and have yet to see Ministers coming up to me to ask certain favours. If they did, they would be very lucky if I did it. I'm not a person who is easily manipulated. Members of the Executive Council have been entrusted with a great responsibility by the Members of this House. We have entrusted these Members with these responsibilities because we felt they were the best people to do the job.

I appreciate that the Minister regularly faces difficult situations and difficult decisions. They are not perfect and they will sometimes make mistakes. Occasional errors in judgement are part of any job and a Member of this House understands that. But the Members of this House, indeed all citizens of the Northwest Territories, expect a certain standard of performance from Members of the Executive Council. The work of the government directly affects almost every aspect of life of every northerner. If that work is not done properly, northerners can suffer.

Madam Speaker, I regret it is my opinion that the honourable Member for Baffin Central has not been able to provide strong guidance and leadership to her department. While I appreciate the efforts the honourable Member has made as a Minister, I feel her performance is not adequate and has not met the expectations of some Members of this House or of the residents of the Northwest Territories.

We have given the honourable Member every opportunity to show this House she is able to perform the tasks assigned to her, but we cannot continue to dance around this issue. Some Members of this House have lacked confidence in the honourable Member's ability for quite awhile and we must now make a decision. We must either leave the issue alone or decide now to face facts. I believe it is time to thank the honourable Member for her efforts and to find another Member who may be more capable and better able to get the job done. That is why I have introduced this motion of non-confidence today.

Madam Speaker, I hold nothing against Members for the decisions they are going to make, nor do I hope the honourable Member for Baffin Central holds this motion against me. I would request a recorded vote.

Thank you. A recorded vote is being requested. Mr. Clerk.

Recorded Vote

All those in favour of the motion, please rise.

Mr. Gargan, Mr. Zoe, Mr. Koe, Mr. Antoine, Mr. Lewis.

All those opposed to the motion, please rise.