Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I did not make a Members' statement earlier, but there was something that was going through my mind but I had not had a chance to prepare it and put it on paper. Mr. Speaker, an interesting observation now comes to light with the event of division and ten Members gone from this House. What we are left with is 14 Members in the west, and there has been very much debate and discussion on the issue of the number of Members that it would take to effectively run this Legislature after division. It was something that was talked about at the time of the electoral boundaries and has been talked about several times since. So now we have had an opportunity to see how the operations of this government works with 14 Members. Mr. Speaker, I think that it has probably become obvious to some
people that certain scenarios can occur when you only have 14 Members, a scenario whereby unforeseen circumstances will take Ministers and Ordinary Members out of the House, a situation which can actually result in, for something as important as budget consideration in the committee of the whole where you could have as few as three or four Members on this side of the House and we would have what they have in other jurisdictions in Canada which would be a majority government and a minority opposition.
Mr. Speaker, I just want to draw this to the attention to Members of this House and to the members of the public that it can have a significant impact and change very much the way that this government does business when that situation arises. It is not something that has ever happened in the past. It is a significant change in the way that the consensus government, as we have known it in the past, has worked with a majority of Ordinary Members and a minority of Cabinet, which we refer to as the government. I just wanted to bring that observation to light today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.