Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to speak in favour of the motion but I want to add a couple of qualifications to my approval. The report indicates that immediate steps should be taken to restore confidence in the office of the Premier, but it does not specify or suggest what steps those might be, outside of the removal, as suggested in 8.22, of two of the key staff members in the Premier's office, Mr. Bayly and Ms. Sorensen.

I would suggest, Mr. Chairman, that -- and this suggestion, again for clarification, it is not part of the motion but it is part of the body of the report, that the suggestion to remove these staff is outside of the jurisdiction of the committee or the Assembly.

I think, Mr. Chairman, that this committee was correct in addressing recommendations one, two and three the way it has. You know, to item number one and the conduct of media, this Assembly, this building is our domain and we have and should exercise jurisdiction in the conduct of members of the public and the media in our domain, so we were correct there.

To the second recommendation, the Minister has, I believe, correctly -- and I commend her for that -- removed herself.

Item number three, we dealt with the conduct of an officer of this Assembly who is indeed within our jurisdiction and our responsibility to do so.

I would repeat that for us to go into the offices of the Executive and dictate what should happen with their staff is not within the jurisdiction of our committee.

Mr. Chairman, when we elected the Premier, indeed all of the other Members of Cabinet, we gave them with that their own jurisdiction and responsibility. The authority to hire and manage whomever they felt was up to the job that they require. Their performance then will ultimately be judged as the performance of their supervisor or their employer, in this case, the Premier.

If the Premier chooses to keep or let go any of his people, then I believe that we should not judge them. We should be judging the Premier on the consequences of that. I do not believe that by reaching into his domain with this, and I believe this would be really, a very punitive act, that we would be taking a step that would restore confidence in the office of the Premier. In fact, I think quite the reverse. It would be a consequence.

We have our own legislative arena here and we may feel that this is the right action to take. In an issue like this, Mr. Chairman, I think we should be looking beyond, as I say, our own legislative arena. We should be looking out into the field, in our communities, in the businesses, and I feel that if we took this step that the stability and integrity of not just the Premier's office but I think of our whole institution would be diminished. That is a word that was used in the report in a previous area. I believe it would shake the confidence of investors in the Northwest Territories, of communities and of our partners in other levels of government, federal and aboriginal.

Mr. Chairman, no one is indispensable, but I really fail to see how confidence would be achieved in this very dramatic act. If immediate action is something that we would want to see, and here is where recommendation 4 does get my support, I would reflect that in some respects that immediate action has already been taken. A Minister has been removed. An officer of the Assembly has been removed. We will be taking steps now to replace those people. In that action we will be making changes and they are immediate changes, that I think will begin to restore confidence in the office of the Premier.

It is a matter of jurisdiction and a matter of degree. I just do not support the idea that this action is one that will really make a constructive step towards restoring confidence. In fact, I believe the reverse would probably be the consequence. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will conclude my remarks with my qualified support for this recommendation.