Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier this week one of my colleagues rose to talk about when the next territorial election should be. He said two years ago he argued for an early election but there was no interest. Mr. Speaker, many things have changed over the past two years. The most important to me, as a Member of this Assembly, is the decline in public confidence both in the government and the Legislative Assembly and many things have contributed to that decline.
In the rest of the country, governments are balancing their budgets and reducing their debt. Here, the government has budgeted itself out of an accumulated surplus and into a situation where we will have a debt of $38 million. This comes at a time when the federal government is trying to deal with the national debt. If our federal budget is cut by a large amount next year, we will be in a very bad deficit situation.
As well, in this time of financial trouble, we need to consider the additional cost of holding a by-election in the riding of our former colleague, Mr. Arvaluk. If a spring election were held, the government would not have to spend our limited resources on this by-election. Residents of the riding could elect a new representative as part of the general election. Two years ago, Mr. Speaker, the government had its negotiations with the UNW settled. Now public service employees are about to enter into their second year without a new contract. In fact, we are aware that the government and the UNW have had to go to arbitration.
In the past two years there have been frequent changes to the Cabinet and leadership of the Assembly. For example, when we take the department of MACA, it has had five different Ministers in the past year and a half and a total of seven new Ministers since this Cabinet was formed. Mr. Speaker, although Members adopted a code of ethics and a statement of zero tolerance for violence...
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to continue my Member's statement.