Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Members know that I've raised the issue of accountability many times in this Assembly over the past seven years. Members will recall I worked on a system for electing the Premier-at-large so that people would know, in fact, who is in charge of the government and was going to be providing it direction and so on. I've also worked on various ways in which party politics could emerge in the Northwest Territories if there were legislation in place in order to support it. In fact, Mr. Speaker, accountability was a major issue when I first ran for election in 1987. I've worked on things that I've promised to work on and since accountability was the major issue, this is the one on which I spent quite a bit of my time.

During the past seven years many changes have taken place across the country. The effect of the debate over the Meech Lake Accord and the referendum over the Charlottetown Accord showed us how out of touch politicians are with the electorate. The rise of the Reform Party with its dedication to direct democracy is a very clear indication that the public wants to be more involved in the political process. The extensive national debate on the Constitution has focused public attention on other ways of making the country, the government and Parliament work better. There's a clear message that the government should connect with the public in a far better manner.

Three years ago, Mr. Speaker, I began working on recall legislation as one of the ways to reinforce that an elected Member in our system be directly accountable to the electorate. In the absence of political parties, all Members of the Legislature are elected as independents. No one gets elected as part of a territorial team that raises money and develops a platform to obtain a majority of party Members in this Assembly. Despite the apparent accountability to the public in the Northwest Territories, however, Mr. Speaker, the public has no disciplinary powers over its Members in the way that a political party does in the provincial Assemblies or in the House of Commons, although there is a gradual movement to allow people free votes in some jurisdictions.

Recall, Mr. Speaker, is one of the ways to establish the linkage of accountability in our system of government. I know that Members have wrestled with the problem in the past but nobody has brought forward a solution. Read Mr. Braden's letter to me which I tabled yesterday, and Members will know how much has gone into this bill and how long the delay has been, how many times this has been referred to different places. So I should like to point out to Members and to the public that this is not a last-gasp initiative. It's taken years.

I would like to remind Members that at second reading we're dealing only with a very simple question. Do you believe that the electorate should have the power to remove its Members before his or her term of office has expired? Do you believe in accountability to the public in the absence of party politics? Do you trust the people who elected you well enough to give them the power to remove its Member?

At this stage, we're not discussing the details of recall, Mr. Speaker, we are discussing only the principle of recall itself. There have been two lengthy debates on recall over the past year: one in the House of Commons in June 1994, and one in the British Columbia Legislature in July 1994. These debates provided a full range of arguments over the advantages and disadvantages of recall. It's interesting to note, Mr. Speaker, that the main argument used in the House of Commons against recall was that no nation state had ever adopted it yet. I would like to point out, Mr. Speaker, that below the level of the nation state, it does exist in the cantons of Switzerland and in the state legislatures of the United States and there's widespread use of the mechanism at municipal and regional levels. The principle of recall exists in aboriginal governments and it exists in the way we operate in this House with regard to the recall of Cabinet Ministers.

In British Columbia, there was little question about the principle of recall. The major criticism of the NDP government-sponsored bill was that it didn't go far enough. The main fault found was that 60 days was too short a time to organize a petition and there were too many regulations governing the recall campaign. Social Credit Members who originally supported a private Member's bill on recall introduced by Jack Weisgerber from Peace River, claimed the bill gave the public no real chance of recalling a Member. Others argued that the 60-day period was more than twice as long as the election campaign which lasts 28 days and therefore provided ample time. The debate showed all Members to be appreciated about the introduction of the legislation. Each Member who introduced this particular bill was treated with tremendous courtesy, they were thanked very much for the opportunity to debate perhaps the most important change in parliamentary democracy in over 700 years. In fact, everybody seemed delighted that this issue was on the floor for debate.

During the two debates on recall which I am referring to, several references were made to a conference called "Reinventing Parliament" which was held in Lethbridge on February 25 and 26, 1994 and organized by the Canada West Foundation under the direction of Dr. Elton who was referred to in Mr. Braden's letter to me yesterday. Over 100 people from across Canada were invited to attend and to speak on innovative approaches to public participation in their Legislature, on the basis of unusual approaches to decision-making. What makes the NWT government unique, of course, is our consensus style of government and how we achieve accountability in it. Now, out of the blue, although I was aware of this conference and really wanted to go, I suddenly got an invitation. I attended this conference with Mr. Zoe, chairman of our Rules, Procedures and Privileges Committee. We participated at that very important conference in Lethbridge on the dates I referred to. At that very important meeting where leaders from across this country were in attendance, there was a vote on recall in the conference working groups and there was a majority support for it. The conference report...