Thank you, committee members. The results of the vote: for, eight; against, six; abstainees, three. The motion is carried.

What is the wish of the committee? Mr. Bell.

Mr. Chairman, we would like to deal with the originally proposed committee motion 3. I believe the second motion is no longer relevant as we acknowledge and recognize the fact that Mrs. Groenewegen has resigned.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. There is a motion on the floor as circulated. The motion is in order. To the motion. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I would like to indicate that I will not be voting in favour of this motion. The reason that I have is because I believe that the committee states at the beginning of the report some of the conditions that the committee had to meet in order to find existence of a reasonable apprehension of bias. I do not believe the committee found this bias on the basis of the facts that the committee reports in this report.

Mr. Chairman, on page 6, paragraph 3.1, the committee states that in order to find bias, they had to find -- and they are referring to the allegation made by the Minister in which she alleged that based on her knowledge of the facts surrounding the circumstance, she felt that the Commissioner had a prior knowledge of her case and failed to inform her of that, and that the Commissioner knew what the report was talking about and that the Commissioner constituted action of coaching or framing the complaint to assist Mr. Rowe, and that the Commissioner failed to provide advice of conflict avoidance.

Given all these factors that the committee had to find that the Commissioner could not bring an open, fresh and an entirely objective approach to the investigation of the complaint. I have to say, Mr. Chairman, that on the basis of facts, I do not believe that this bias is found. I think what might have been found is that the committee did not like the way the Commissioner conducted herself. In one part of the report, I am sorry I cannot say exactly what page, but the committee found the testimonials of the Commissioner to be passive and not able to articulate herself. I think that was one of the factors that the committee found.

The other thing was how she was so strident and aggressive in her written submission. That is one example of where the committee finds she is problematic because she was too passive when she should have been aggressive, and she was too aggressive when she should have been passive.

I do not believe that the job of the committee was to evaluate her job performance. I agree with the findings that there were a lot of areas where the Commissioner could have been more clear or provided guidance in a way that is maybe even favourable to Members, but I believe that she is an adjudicator and we do not always have a choice of how we want our adjudicator to conduct themselves. If you are a lawyer, for example, you do not always have a choice of the judges you like to go before on your judgment.

I think that to find a bias, it has to mean a very high standard, that somehow, she did not have the capacity to make the decision that has been put to her on the basis of facts that have been put to her. I do not believe that is the case.

If there is a question of incompetence, I think that is not the role of this committee and this Assembly to decide in this forum. The Commissioner was hired by a public process by the Board of Management. I think that question should go to the Assembly to decide.

Mr. Chairman, I am also very troubled by the power of this Assembly to, by its process, basically destroy the career of a person that has been built up over 20 years or so. She was placed in a position where she could not be anything but aggressively defending her professional life. I think that this recommendation goes beyond what was called for.

Somewhere in this report, the committee states that the Commissioner's lawyer made it clear that this is not about evaluation of her performance, but that facts of the case are such that they have to find, that they have to evaluate her performance. I think that is a lead that is not appropriate for the mandate of this committee.

I am sorry I am not able to give you all the pages. There is a lot of information in here that I have been reading but on that basis, for now, I cannot support this recommendation. It does not mean that I do not agree with some of the facts that the committee has found. I just feel that it is not just about this person in question. It is about the office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner, an office that has been created by law to oversee the conduct of these Members. I feel very uncomfortable in prosecuting a person and the office on a basis of facts that does not meet the standard of a very high standard that has to be met in a question of bias. I will just stop there and hopefully other Members will comment on where they stand on this, if they wish. If I think of any other points I want to make, I would like to choose to come back to that. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I want to indicate that I also cannot support this recommendation. I took the time yesterday to review the report presented to us and I cannot find anywhere in there that there is a clear-cut case, that there is a bias. The words reasonable apprehension that the Conflict of Interest Commissioner may be bringing a bias perspective is as close as it comes to. That, however, does not satisfy me that there were grounds for a bias.

I think the committee found in their work that the Commissioner handled this investigation poorly, did not keep proper notes and other things came up which led them to believe that there is no confidence in her work and her work ethics. However, I have the concern that this individual did not realize that she was going through an evaluation process in terms of her work other than the bias complaint. The Board of Management should be the body that we turn to and have a proper job evaluation done, a proper performance evaluation. I think we as a legislative body and the 14th Assembly have to practice due diligence and we have to turn this matter over to ensure that this person is properly evaluated.

The end result may be the same, Mr. Chairman, but I do not agree that this is the proper channel to proceed on and the proper way to handle it. Therefore, I will not be supporting it, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I will be supporting this resolution. I would like to outline my reasons for it. I do not believe that Ms. Roberts has demonstrated any malice in the reflection of her job. I am not convinced that there was any demonstration of actual bias that was found but, Mr. Chairman, I think it is worth noting in the terms of reference of the committee under point 2 that after the consideration of the allegation of an apprehension of bias, the committee is also to consider related matters which have arisen or may arise during the normal course of proceedings of the special committee.

Mr. Chairman, until I witnessed some of the proceedings of the committee and became aware of the contents of the taped conversation, I was unaware that the Conflict Commissioner had discussed a Member's conflict case with a member of the government staff. As far as I am concerned, Mr. Chairman, that one incident alone caused me to lose confidence in the ability of the Conflict Commissioner to perform the function of the job as I understand the job to be, or should be performed.

I think that whether there was any bias demonstrated or not, whether there was any malice demonstrated or not, and whether it was a mistake that was made because of inexperience or for whatever reason, as far as I am concerned it is a mistake that is fatal to my trust in her to be able to perform that position.

If you look at section 92(2) of the act, it says that the Commissioner, on the recommendation of the Legislative Assembly, not the Board of Management but the Legislative Assembly, may for cause or incapacity, suspend or remove from office the Conflict of Interest Commissioner. It is not the responsibility of the Board of Management to reflect on whether or not this person should be hired or fired. In fact, it was not the Board of Management that hired her. It was this Assembly. It was the 19 Members of this Assembly that decided whether or not she would have this position and therefore it is proper that it come before this Assembly for a decision.

Having watched the proceedings, I am afraid that I would, even if the committee had not come forward with this recommendation, be prepared to present such a resolution in the House myself because I have lost confidence in her performance of the job.

Again, I do not think anything was done in malice. I just think that it may have been done with the best of intentions, but as far as I am concerned, a Conflict of Interest Commissioner should never speak to an employee of this government about a conflict case or to anybody else. They should not be speaking to the press about a conflict case.

If somebody makes an allegation about conflict against me, I want to know that the investigation will be concluded before the Conflict Commissioner discusses that allegation. I think we should all know that we are going to have that same privacy respected when allegations are made.

Until there has been an investigation, there should be no discussion about whether or not there has been a breach of conflict. We all know how quickly our reputations could be damaged. I think it is absolutely imperative that we know that our reputations are going to be protected whenever an allegation is made until there is something that has been found to either be wrong or wherever indicated.

I will be supporting this resolution, and not even specifically for the reasons outlined in the report. I think just watching the proceedings and specifically, the conversation between the Conflict Commissioner and Mr. Bayly, has caused me to say that was a fatal error. I will have to support the motion for that reason. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I would like to make it clear I am not trying to slow the process of this committee down with my question here, but I have a question on the bottom of the motion, where it says, "And further, the adoption of this motion be deemed to be a resolution of the House."

I question, Mr. Chairman, whether that is possible. I am under the understanding that in order to pass a resolution in the House, there has to be formal notice and two days formal notice of a motion in the House, so therefore, I have questions whether or not this may be a contravention of the rules.

I would like to speak to the other aspects of this motion afterwards.

Thank you, Mr. Steen, for that question. I am going to get our legal counsel, Ms. Peterson, to give her views on this matter. Ms. Peterson.

Thank you, Ms. Peterson. Mr. Steen, do you have any further comments?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the clerk for that clarification. To the contents of the motion itself in relation to loss of confidence in Ms. Roberts as a Conflict of Interest Commissioner, I question, Mr. Chairman, what the results of this motion would mean if it were to pass. Keep in mind that the investigation of Ms. Roberts and her conduct is all related to an inquiry or to an investigation she had done into a Member and her report based on that investigation to this House.

If we accept that report and do not question it, I do not understand how we can question the conduct of Ms. Roberts. If we question the conduct of Ms. Roberts, we then question the contents of that report. It seems to put back into question whether or not there was a proper investigation done on the conflict of interest complaint itself.

It seems to me that if the motion was to go forward and Ms. Roberts was incompetent, which this motion suggests, then she did not do a competent report and therefore, there is a need for another investigation into the Member's conduct as a Minister.

We heard earlier from the Law Clerk that simply by the Member resigning does not stop the process, so it follows that if this was the report and we accepted this, we then accept the fact that there is further need for an investigation into the Member's conduct by whom we would consider a competent Conflict of Interest Commissioner.

I have a problem accepting that. Personally, I have read the contents of the report and the conduct, as it suggests, of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner. I have never had any personal problems with the Conflict of Interest Commissioner and her ability to deal with my personal files.

What I find in the report is not enough for me to suggest that I should lose confidence in her, in particular, if I accept the fact that she is still capable of ruling on an investigation or a complaint, which we seem to have accepted.

Now, as I said, Mr. Chairman, I need some clarification here as to whether or not this suggests that there is further need for more complaint. Obviously the original complaint would still be there if in fact we suggest that she was not competent to deal with this complaint. All of the facts that are related to why we are investigating her in the first place relates to her conduct on that particular complaint.

It seems to me that Mr. Rowe's complaint would still be there and would still need to be addressed. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Steen. Mr. Steen, maybe to clarify, were you looking for some clarification from the Law Clerk at this time? Mr. Steen.

Mr. Chairman, I guess I am looking for some clarification from the committee in whether or not they took this particular situation into consideration.

Thank you, Mr. Steen. Mr. Bell, did you want to respond to that? Mr. Bell.

I am not sure that I have the entire detail of the question Mr. Steen is asking, but I think it goes something like this: I think he is saying, is it possible to have a report which you may not in fact be questioning and still find that you have lost confidence in the person who wrote the report? I think this speaks to the issue of the reasonable apprehension of bias. I think the committee has said from the outset conceivably, certainly, where you could see someone in their investigation leading up to a report had done things like talk to the media, or some of these other kinds of things which would cause you to lose confidence or cause you to have a reasonable apprehension of bias.

The actual results of the report, one way or another, would not confirm nor deny whether or not that had taken place. If that is Mr. Steen's question as to how we can accept the report and still have concerns about someone's competence or whether there was a reasonable apprehension of bias leading up to that report, I think yes, you can. I think it is important to remember that the application of reasonable apprehension of bias was made before the report was ever seen by anybody.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Steen, did you want to comment further?

Mr. Chairman, thank you. I do not understand how, Mr. Chairman, we could ignore the report and the contents of the report and at the same time suggest we are dealing with an issue of bias. The two are tied together. This whole report suggests that even though the Commissioner may not have been biased, she was incompetent and not operating in a professional manner. That suggests that the report is not a competent report.

I still come to the conclusion that I cannot support this motion that we are going to ask Carol Roberts to resign as a Conflict Commissioner and at the same time accept the report that she supplied to the House. It seems to me you cannot do that. It is not practical. It is not reasonable.

Also, this report suggests that whatever we do, whether she is biased or not, is based not so much on what the committee considers as bias but what a reasonable person would consider as bias. I do not know what that says to the committee, but it seems to me a reasonable person would see that you cannot disconnect the two. That is why I cannot support this motion.

Thank you, Mr. Steen. Mr. Bell.

Well, I guess I do not want to go through this again and go through all of the points that led up to us feeling that the House, or certainly the committee, had lost confidence in the relationship between Members and the Conflict Commissioner.

I can just say that when we looked at the reasonable apprehension of bias and what gave rise to this, Mr. Steen is right,;we are talking about, when we are judging this standard, what an objective outside observer would feel looking from the outside in on the process. You have to ask yourself, would an objective person looking at this feel any concern that Mrs. Groenewegen might not get a fair shake? I think that is the question we are trying to ask ourselves.

When we looked at the Miltenberger report and saw that she had not been advised of the sections she was being complained under and therefore had no chance to respond to those sections, and when we see that the suggestion was made that there might be sanctions made against Mrs. Groenewegen by the House when in fact, really, there was found to be nothing in the report to sanction -- it was dismissed. Then we talk about the fact that we discover Ms. Roberts had knowledge from a discussion with Mr. Selleck for a couple of weeks before Mrs. Groenewegen ever had knowledge that there was an investigation and did not inform her, those are the kinds of things that concerned us and gave rise to this reasonable apprehension of bias.

We asked ourselves, if we are outside observers looking at this, do we have concerns that Mrs. Groenewegen may or may not get a fair shake? If we do, then there is a reasonable apprehension of bias and Ms. Roberts should have stepped aside and allowed another investigator to come in.

These things all happened before she tabled her report, the Rowe report, as it is now called. So the contents of the Rowe report are not irrelevant but they are not what the reasonable apprehension of bias turns on.

I do not know what more to say to Mr. Steen. I hope that I have answered his question as best I can but for further detail, it is laid out in the report and if he still objects, that is his prerogative. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. I had not called on you to more or less open up a discussion on this, but that I had your name down for further comments on the motion. Did you want to speak further on the motion, Mr. Bell?