Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is, I gather, a difficult question for a lot of Members and one that is not easy to address. I felt that it needed to be brought forward in the House today to discuss and allow Members to have their say on the matter. I have talked to my constituents, many of them, and certainly the comments that I got back were, that I should make a decision on this. The decision I have made is to put forward this motion. I do not think, by the Premier not being in the Chair of Premier, that it will lead to gridlock of this government. As I mentioned earlier, I have every confidence in the Deputy Premier and Cabinet Members to function properly. I think the government will continue to be effective and will carry on. I am sure the Premier has a lot of work that he undertakes, but there are eight Members and I do not see that they could not take on the particular responsibility of his role.
I said earlier that I did not move on this motion lightly. I have given it a lot of thought, but it is an area of what I feel is a question of impartiality and objectivity in the role of the Premier. Mr. Picco referred earlier to such areas as the police when they are under investigation, they are suspended from their position or they step aside until the investigation is over and so it goes with the medical profession. Just because there are not any precedents, Mr. Speaker. Precedents are an odd thing. Every case that goes to the Supreme Court or every case that is in court is an individual case and so it is difficult to come up with precedents. In our case, we elected the Premier. I had a vote on that. In the case of Cabinet, in the event of an allegation, the Premier is able to make that judgment call on the Ministers. In this case, it is only we who make that decision as whether to address this issue of asking the Premier to step down because we elected the Premier directly. I felt a responsibility in that end and hence, I would seek Members' indulgence to vote in favour of the motion, but additionally, Mr. Speaker, I would ask for a recorded vote. Thank you.