Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I speak to this motion as well. My concerns are in regard to the timing of this particular motion. I realize that my constituents for my communities voted in favour of a Boundary Commission at the Beaufort Regional Leadership Conference. This was the second indication of their wishes, as Mr. Roland pointed out. Mr. Speaker, the only problem I have with this particular request from the Beaufort is that they did not indicate clearly as to when they would like this Boundary Commission to take place. Mr. Speaker, I do have concerns with the timing of the Boundary Commission in that I would hope that the Boundary Commission, or the people putting the Boundary Commission in place, will take into consideration the facts that there are consultations that are going to be going on in the communities on the constitution. A Boundary Commission touring the same communities at the same time may cause a lot of confusion within the communities. I would hope that the Boundary Commission would go forward after the consultation on the constitution has taken place. I have that particular concern.
However, I have a larger concern in that, as other members have expressed, the ability of government to operate with 14 Members. Mr. Speaker, we already indicated to the federal government that we may be operating with 14 Members as of April 1st, 1999 until elections in October 1999. This would be a timeframe whereby we would get a pretty clear indication of how effective a six Member Cabinet really is. I am also very concerned about the ability for seven Ordinary Members not only to control Cabinet, but to hold meetings and review all the work plans of the government. What kind of a workload are we putting on those seven Members and would they be able to effectively review all that information? We have had, Mr. Speaker, in our own experience in the past three years, a good indication of the amount of workload that is involved in reviewing government work plans. I would be very concerned about that.
I think my major concern is whether or not 14 Members could control the bureaucrats. That would be my major concern. Would we want bureaucrats running the government? Would we be able to have enough information and be well informed enough to be always on top of the bureaucrats, or do we just take whatever the bureaucrats recommend and go with that? That has been one of my major concerns in the past three years, how do we get control and keep control of this particular government bearing in mind that bureaucrats go on from one assembly to the next? They are there all the time. I personally have experience where we came here with the idea at one time that we were going to have a brand new government, a brand new work plan, and a brand new way too, but, in fact, the bureaucrats had quite a bit of say as to what that brand new plan was going to be.
With that in mind, Mr. Speaker, I do not look at a new Assembly, say the first Assembly of the new territory, whatever it would be called, and wish to put a workload on them that they could not operate effectively. Mind you, we still do not know whether it is going to be 14 Members after the commission is finished. We do not know what those numbers are going to be. Let us hear what the public has to say.
Mr. Speaker, I would recommend strongly that this motion does not indicate a time frame. Rather than suggest a timeframe at this point, I would hope that in deciding when the commission would operate we would take into consideration the fact that there are going to be tours in the communities on the constitution. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I will be supporting the motion as it is.
--Applause