Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As today is the day of the federal election, I would like to make liberal use of my Member's statement and...

-- Laughter

-- Applause

...and make a brief comment about open government. Mr. Speaker, 19 months ago many of us were on the outside of this building looking in and we complained about decisions being made in the back rooms and many of us ran on platforms of open, accessible government. Since the election of the 13th Assembly we in fact have tried to open up our proceedings. We have substantially revised the committee structure as one way to do that.

Mr. Speaker, we faced a very difficult first two years dealing with budget cuts and other personnel matters related to restructuring but we are beyond the cuts now. We still continue to get a certain amount of flak about how we make decisions. In the Constitutional Working Group, for instance, we found out that it would be most wise for us to open up our meetings to the public and the media. The House, Mr. Speaker, is one forum for discussion. It is good for final decisions but the rules tend to restrict the flow of discussion on several topics. Mr. Speaker, as I have done in the past and at other meetings, I would like to suggest that we try to open up committee proceedings as much as possible.

Mr. Speaker, in my opinion and from personal experience I can tell you that there is a lot of very good discussion that goes on in committees, the kind of discussion that would be very beneficial for the public to hear about the complexity of the issues we deal with and the very important matters that are before us. Clearly there will always be situations that are in camera, personnel matters, budgetary matters and other sensitive matters but a lot of things could be done and should be done that are open to the public.

Mr. Speaker, people tend to fear what they do not know and they tend to see bogeymen when they think things are done in secret. My experience is that once people know that things are open, the bogeymen tend to disappear. In my six years on town council, we opened up our meetings and we found out that lo and behold, once they were open people did not show up. They came only for the major issues.

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.