Thank you, Mr. Steen. On the point of order, there does not appear to be a point of order, but it would probably be better addressed if you were to seek a legal opinion on this issue. We do have our Law Clerk with us if you would wish to address that question to the Law Clerk. Thank you. Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the clarification. I will address my question as I stated it previously, and I am sure she heard it. Perhaps she can give us an opinion on whether we are proceeding properly.

Thank you, Mr. Steen. Could we get clarification from the Law Clerk on this issue? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Peterson. Mr. Steen, having received that clarification, did you wish to continue with your general comments? Mr. Steen.

No, Mr. Chairman, my general comments will be made when we reach the recommendation stage.

-- Interjection

Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I would also like to thank Mrs. Groenewegen for taking the high road today and tendering her resignation. I think with that action, she has taken full responsibility and demonstrated remorse for her actions.

My reading of the report indicates to me that the committee has heard the evidence, they have weighed that evidence carefully and I think they have made the right recommendations.

We set up a committee because not all of us were prepared to sit through the days of testimony and that is typical of our process here. We establish committees, whether it is the Governance and Economic Development committee or the Social Programs committee, in order to better utilize our time. We then listen to the recommendations that come forward from those committees in this Legislative Assembly and act upon them.

I did not attend all of the hearings. I did attend some. I did not watch all of the proceedings on TV, but I did watch some. From what I saw and heard, I am satisfied that the process was as fair and as reasonable as we could possibly have in this forum.

I think it was essential for the committee to get to the bottom of a matter of trust. I think that, as has been noted by many, there are clearly no winners in this process. I suspect that many of our constituents feel we are all tarnished because of the whole process and the episode that has led to it.

I too would say that the committee had a very difficult job and thank them for the work that they put into it. They were faced many times with lawyers and none of the committee members are lawyers. This was a process that they tried to allow for as fair and open a process as could be reasonably expected here but I think it is important to remember that there are three branches of government.

There is the judiciary, the government and there is the Legislature. As I remember my readings on parliamentary democracies, all three branches are equal. There is not one that is over and above the other.

I note in particular that Members in this branch of government, the Legislature, are not always required to be lawyers. They are in the judiciary. You cannot be a judge without having been a lawyer. There is a different process.

Members of the Legislative Assembly do not sit in judgment in the judiciary. It is quite clear from my reading and understanding of parliamentary democracies that the legal process is kept out of our walls as well. We do stand and judge our own. We stand alone and judge our own. It is not something that we bring the courts into.

I think in watching the proceedings and reading the transcripts and weighing what I have seen in front of us in terms of recommendations, I have to commend the members of the committee for taking on the difficult job. Again, I believe it was absolutely necessary.

When there is an allegation of bias made against somebody who has a considerable amount of power over me, I think it is important for me to know -- and all Members to know -- whether or not that bias is actually there. So we had to get to the bottom of that allegation of bias.

In the process, I think we have found out a lot of things that I was not aware of. I have to say that I was extremely, extremely shocked to find that a government employee would think of picking up the phone to call the Conflict of Interest Commissioner to ask questions about a case that the Conflict of Interest Commissioner was considering. That is terribly wrong. It is absolutely wrong.

I want to know that the Conflict Commissioner will talk to nobody about my personal affairs or any complaint against me until that complaint has been investigated by the Commissioner. There should be no conversation.

In finding out about the conversation between Mr. Bayly and Ms. Roberts, I have immediately lost confidence in both of them. I think that was a significant mistake. It is one that causes me significant concern and I have no faith in either one of them. Without this process, I might not have known that had taken place but that alone is enough to cause me a very big concern. I might have known that there was a conversation. I guess I should restate that but I had no idea what was the substance of that conversation or whether or not there had been, in fact, any discussion of the case. That is the problem, the fact that there appears to have been some discussion of the case, at least in my mind.

I would disagree with those who say that this was a flawed process. I think that the process was necessary. I would disagree that in a democracy, we need unanimous consent to give a committee legitimacy. In our system here, everything sooner or later comes to a vote. We often have committees that are divided in their opinions and will sometimes have minority reports coming forward to this Legislative Assembly and the Assembly itself has to then choose which course of action to take. So unanimity is certainly not something that is always required in a democracy.

In terms of freedom from intimidation, Mr. Chairman, I read the letter that Mr. Ootes was talking about to mean that government staff or government officials should not be talking to other members of staff and trying to colour their testimony. I read it as a means of making sure that there was in fact free speech and that people felt that they were free to talk without fear of reprisal to the committee if they were called. So maybe there is a problem with the interpretation here, that in fact I thought that letter was going a long ways to guarantee that there was some freedom of speech and that we are going to have a transparent and open process.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I may have further comments on each of the recommendations as we get to them, but those are my opening general comments.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I was going to refrain from speaking specifically to the report until we possibly got to the recommendations, but with the things that have been said here, I believe they deserve a response, otherwise individuals out there who only get to see a part of this process might only get part of the truth and part of the story.

I feel, Mr. Chairman, that in fact this has been the cause of much of our distress. That is a cause of concern for me.

Mr. Speaker, when we talk about the process we entered into, the Special Committee on Conflict Process went to the heart of government, went to the heart of accountability and transparency. It is not an easy task to look at yourself and judge upon your own. It is difficult in all arenas. It is no easier here when you know that in this floor, things can be said and partial things can be told and we leave the very crux of the issue still hanging.

Let me tell you, some people may have thought that the committee members, I being one of them, took this light-heartedly or did not take it to task that this was a very serious issue. Let me assure you, Mr. Chairman, that in fact -- and I will assure my constituents -- I took this on very seriously, just as I took on my oath when I became a Member of this Legislative Assembly. I did not take that light-heartedly. I did not look at that as just being some words on a piece of paper, that I can get on with my job and run government as I see fit, in or out of the law.

Our job is to show the people of the Territories, those who have put us here, employed, unemployed, sick, healthy, rich and poor, that we are going to represent them all equally no matter their concern. We will be judged on that.

Now, Mr. Chairman, specifically to the issue to some of the concerns that Members have stated so far. One is that we may have sleepwalked into this. I sure hope that was not the fact, that our executives are asleep at the wheel. I have a very serious concern with that in fact we might have sleepwalked into this.

It has been two years that we have had to deal with conflict in this Assembly on more then one occasion. On a yearly basis we are reminded as Members when we have to put our forms in to the Conflict of Interest Commissioner of what we are to do and what is expected of us.

I do not believe the letter that was sent out to Members was a gag order. In fact, it was to make sure the process remained clean and clear from any other possible situations where Members can get themselves into problems by stating and becoming involved when it was not best to do so, there would be opportunity and Members now have stated they have the free opportunity to speak to the issues.

I share the same concern in the fact of needing a unanimous consent to have such a committee as that struck up. To me, Mr. Speaker, and maybe I have been in government too long, but I look at that as if that is the situation, then one Member could derail accountability and transparency and that is just not acceptable.

Mr. Chairman, we have an opportunity here today to clear the water but in fact, I still see a continuance of muddying the waters. I guess we can so well expect that. There are very critical issues before us: the confidence of Members of this Assembly.

Mr. Chairman, the Premier may have taken this process lightly, but let me assure you that I did not take this process on lightly. I think that I can prove to my constituents that in fact the committee has done its utmost to maintain integrity and the process that was put in front of us.

Since he spoke about his testimony and what was not asked of him when the questions were asked of him, he had the opportunity to state what his dealings were in this matter but he gave only what he gave. I guess you can say we do have the opportunity. We have the last opportunity to deal with this issue. We can introduce, in a sense, almost new evidence that has not been available to this committee. When the arguments took place of the establishment of this committee and its ongoing mandate, some critical pieces of information were not there. That was highlighted in the report. Maybe some offence was taken to that but more offence might be taken by Members knowing that in fact, when they did not have information, decisions were trying to be made with their lack of full knowledge and others had knowledge. Knowledge is power, Mr. Chairman, as we well know.

Mr. Chairman, you have heard the Member, Ms. Lee, talk about not a good day yesterday. Well, in fact, it has been more than a bad day. We have this cloud hanging over us for a number of months. It was very strongly put to us that there has been an apparent abuse of power. While I agree in a sense that unlimited power in the parliamentary privilege is given, yes, that can be stated that there is unlimited power in parliamentary privilege, but that is why, Mr. Chairman, we are held to higher standards. That is why we have to be accountable and transparent to those who have put us in these chairs.

To go further, Mr. Chairman, involvement of senior staff in such a matter as conflict draws serious concern to me as an individual, a Member who does not have the resources to call on other staff to take part in this process. But even more so, Mr. Chairman, the fact that any average person on the street today, what would they think if they felt there was a concern regarding possible conflict of one of the Members and that might be a Minister? Would they be secure and feel secure in laying a complaint knowing that the machinery of government would gear up and they would have to deal with that.

Mr. Chairman, we all took an oath when we came to this arena. I do not believe that any one of us took it lightly. We have a duty to the people of the Northwest Territories to do the business of government and do it in a way that would hold their trust in us.

Unfortunately, there come times when we have to deal with the issues before us that are not so nice to deal with, that in fact that we have to look at each other and examine each other as to what we are going to accomplish or not accomplish.

I did not like the task that I had before me and I had to take part in but I did so knowing of the possible consequences and follow-up that would come. Yes, there are those that will turn the focus around and aim not at the problems that occurred but at those and the process being used to try to clear up that matter. Let us hope from all of this, Mr. Chairman, that we will learn and we will put in place the necessary precautions that will ensure, as my colleague for the Mackenzie Delta stated, that we will not have to go through this again.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I will reserve further comment when we get to the recommendations. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. I will go to Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, like my other colleagues, I did not follow this as close as some may have. I tuned into when it was on television. I did hear it over the radio at times. I am still a little surprised, maybe not so much anymore, at how far this has gone and how big an issue it has gotten to be on something that I assumed was a simple oversight and it could have been settled very quickly. I guess in hindsight, we can say that now. It was something that could have been settled very quickly had the Minister taken ownership of the issue and become more accountable.

When it came to the table for our decision last time and when the allegation of bias was withdrawn and the Conflict of Interest Commissioner's report was tabled, I thought that was the end of it. I was confident that there was no longer a complaint on the table and we should not have to go forward. I was of the opinion that we had already spent too much time, too much money and it has taken away too much of our attention from other issues that I felt were more important.

However, at that time when I made my vote, I was not aware that there was other information out there, other issues that were on the table and had to be dealt with. I was not aware that there were phone calls. I took it for granted when I heard the Premier stand up and say that it was a one-time isolated incident.

So in that case, I am glad that the committee did win the vote. I am glad that they did go ahead and provide us with this report and I took the time yesterday to go through it. There is a lot of information there. I think they did a very good job.

However, I am not saying I agree with everything that the committee has stated. I think that it was a very courageous and honourable thing for the Minister to do today by resigning. I think that is something that demonstrates that she is taking ownership of her actions. However, in the committee's report, there are statements and recommendations that I will make comments to later. I wanted to just touch on them a bit here.

For instance, on the Conflict of Interest Commissioner. I do not see it in the report anywhere that states that this lady was found in a position where she was biased. It kind of hints to that but it does not demonstrate clearly to me, it does not give me the comfort that this woman was found biased in her dealings.

There is still a recommendation that we will be dealing with later. However, it bothers me that the Conflict of Interest Commissioner was evaluated for her dealings and the way she handled this whole inquiry. I do not believe, at least in my opinion, that is what we set the committee up to do.

If there is and was a problem about her performance, then that is something that the Board of Management should be handling or should have handled. I still believe that the Board of Management should be doing a proper job evaluation of this position, of this person.

I have a problem in that area. I also have a problem when it comes down to the recommendation of the Premier's staff. I do not know if I agree totally with the recommendation. I think this is an issue that has to be handled by the Premier himself. It really, I guess in a way, is testing our confidence in the Premier and I think it is going to leave that question out there for many of the people in the North as to the confidence that this House has in our Premier. It is going to be a very difficult process.

I want to be able to recommend that we allow the Premier to be given the opportunity to prove himself and prove that he has the confidence of the people of the North.

I have more comments to make but I will reserve those until we deal with the recommendations. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Braden.

Mr. Chairman, one of the realities, the tough realities of life and business and government is that mistakes happen, things go wrong. Some of them are true, horrific disasters, others are just little touch-up jobs. Regardless, mistakes happen. The real test of our commitment and our integrity and the values that we have to ourselves and to our families, to our colleagues, to our communities is how we manage the situation when things go wrong.

It is the skill and the ability and the tools that we bring to bear in fixing or repairing those mistakes. I think that is how we are really judged and how we can measure ourselves.

I was a supporter a few months ago of extending the mandate of this committee to seek out the facts. I was not satisfied that we had enough information about some of the circumstances, what had happened, subsequent to the problem that Mrs. Groenewegen had, namely the difficulty, the really inconsequential difficulty of not cleaning up some paperwork on a corporate registry.

I had hoped that when the mandate of the committee was renewed and extended, that their work would be -- would come out in a plain language, a plain talk, easily accessible process and again, examination of the three central questions that we asked the committee to look at.

Since then, of course, I have learned that was a very naïve expectation on my part. In fact, it turned out to be not at all a plain talk, a plain language and accessible process.

It was naïve of me, I guess, to expect that when jobs and careers and professions and integrity was to be put in the glare and the spotlight of the media, of the Legislative Assembly process, that the committee was compelled to become involved and enmeshed in the very complex, infinitely complex world of legal wrangling that went on.

In that process, on the occasions that I took to watch what was going on, it caused me discomfort, Mr. Chairman, to see the tone and the calibre of discussion and discourse that was going on in a different part of this building.

I would be ashamed and embarrassed to have the kind of things and the tone that was used in some of those discussions used in this part of the Assembly. As I say, it distressed me that it was going on in another part of this building.

Be that as it may, I want to say to the committee that I believe they did strive with honesty and with energy to fulfil the mandate that was given to them.

I do feel that I am better informed. I will not go so far as to say I am fully informed but I am much better informed and I do feel, on the basis of what has been presented, ready to engage in a discussion of the recommendations. I also congratulate the committee for delivering clear and especially unambiguous recommendations. I think it could have been very easy for the committee to have skirted or gone around the number of the tasks and the questions that were before it, but the committee did not. They are clear recommendations. That is not to say I am in agreement with all of them but I do salute them for delivering, I think, largely a good product in the task that was assigned.

Mr. Chairman, as you said a few moments ago when you were speaking as a member of committee, that time is something that we have to recognize as one of the ingredients in arriving at a way to resolve this. Time is a very good management tool.

It does come down for the Assembly and for the constituents, a matter of rebuilding, re-establishing a trust in the integrity of this institution. There is no magic, instant fix in what has transpired. I will look forward to the discussion and hopefully be able to contribute to it when we do get to our recommendations point by point. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Next on my list I have Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Next on my list I have Mr. Delorey.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I as well as other Members feel compelled to speak to this issue because it involves all of us to the very core of our job, I think.

When this committee was first established way back in June, I originally let my name stand to be on the committee, but the spots were pretty well taken and they had alternate Members, which was okay with me. I was willing to serve on that committee if there was a need for people there. However, I felt that it was a good thing to put the committee in place because we needed a process to deal with conflict issues.

I think we need a process that is fair, that removes any doubt from the public out there that wants to know the true information. I did not think at the time that we had a process in place. I am not sure that we still have a process in place that will fairly do that but I think that it is incumbent upon us now for sure to look at a process, how we deal with it and to get a process in place that will be fair.

When the committee was given its expanded mandate, I had some serious concerns at that time as to where we were going on something that started as a very minute thing and, as one Member said, could have possibly been simply an oversight. I felt that there was no need to go ahead and bring out a full-fledged investigation into the issues, but at the same time, it also has been mentioned that we made that decision missing some very critical information.

When I look back on it now and knowing the information that I do now, I think that the committee needed to be in place. It has been mentioned by a few Members around whether it was easy or whether it was not easy. I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, that it has not been easy for me sitting outside the committee. I can imagine what it was like sitting on the committee. To where this has gone and to the areas that we have gone into, I have no regrets that I was not on the committee.

However, I have no doubt that every Member on there felt the same thing. I looked at the Members who were on the committee and I tried to visualize why they were on the committee, what they were going to look at and when they were done, would we have a fair and honest assessment of the information that was presented?

I heard yesterday in the Premier's opening remarks and in Mr. Handley's opening remarks that it is very important for this Assembly to stay the course, to not get sidetracked. Well, in view of everything, Mr. Chairman, if we stay the course, we have to meet this head on because it is smack in the middle of the road in front us and to avoid it, we have to get sidetracked.

I sit here almost embarrassed to speak on this issue. My colleague from Hay River has been drastically damaged by this. I looked across at her making her statement this morning and I know that it was not easy for her. It was not easy for her and it was not easy for me listening to it.

I think that all the issues that surround the fact that Mrs. Groenewegen had to step down as her role as Deputy Premier and now off Cabinet has been influenced by a lot of things that have happened. Who takes the blame for that and what is done about it I think is what is in front of us and has to be dealt with. She has obviously paid the price already and I commend her for stepping down and taking the high road on it. She has obviously weighed the pros and cons of what she had to do. She has admitted to making mistakes, whether those mistakes were warranted of her Cabinet position. Obviously, she weighed that and felt that was her best way out.

However, now that she has stepped down from Cabinet and taken the responsibility and paid the price, do we overlook whatever else was involved in this process?

It is extremely hard, Mr. Chairman, for me to say that the key people, who I think should have been there to advise her to not get into this situation that she got herself into, were the ones who helped her get into it. That weighs very heavily on my mind when I look at this whole issue. We have some very experienced people and I guess that is the part of the information that we did not have at one point when we were making some very serious decisions as to how we were going to deal with issues that are in front of us in this Assembly.

I sincerely hoped that when I was elected as a Member of this Assembly that we would not get into something like this. I think it has been mentioned that the 13th Assembly was tarnished with conflict of interest issues and I had hoped that this Assembly would not do that, would not get into it. Yet here we are and I think that we have to deal with them.

I sat here yesterday and listened to the recommendations the committee made. I guess my initial reaction was that this committee has gone way too far. It has gone too deep. I also had a look at the information that was presented and other information related to it.

I cannot honestly say that had I been on the committee, that I would not have put my signature to any of those things because I do feel that in every case that they had to deal with the evidence that was presented to them and do their best in judging that evidence and putting a report together.

I want to commend the committee on a very extensive report.

Obviously, one part of that report, the issue has been dealt with now. One of the recommendations we probably will not have to do much with because the honourable Member has now lost her Cabinet position over it.

To say we are not going to deal with the other ones is wrong as well. We have to look at all of them now. They are in our face. They are out in the public and I think we have to deal with them.

Mr. Chairman, I will close for now until we get into the recommendations. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Delorey. Next on my list I have Mr. Nitah.

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. Next on my list I have Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a very few brief comments. I was a Member of the 13th Assembly and we dealt with some fairly major issues; division, significant deficit problems but unfortunately, what was the defining issue that hangs over the 13th Assembly for all time, in my opinion, was the Morin inquiry, the conflict issue.

I have the same sinking feeling that the defining issue of this, the 14th Assembly, halfway through our term, is going to be this issue that is now before this Assembly, that has consumed a significant amount of time, energy and resources and has been over our heads for many months.

I do not intend to hint that we preclude debate. I think we have a report to deal with. I think the people of the Northwest Territories want to see us deal with this in a good way, but deal with it, get it off the table and get back to work. We have two years left.

As the Premier and the Minister of Finance indicated, there is a big agenda out there so I am hoping that we can deal with this, listen to the comments and not get into the situation of wanting to retry or rehear the evidence and deal with process issues or those kinds of things. I think it is time to sort of step up to the plate, look at these and I, as well, commend the Minister for her actions today. Let us bring closure to this. It is time to do that and it is time for us to get back to work and get this off our plate and get on with the other business of the House. I would hope over the next day that we will hopefully do that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Are there any other Members who have not spoken who would like to speak now? If not, I will go to the other Members who want to speak again. Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had some final remarks that I wanted to make. I would just like to refresh everyone. I was speaking about the issue of my freedom of speech and in it I mentioned that my words were couched in may or may have language and again, this is because the letter precluded me from seeking clarification from the Clerk of this Assembly because he became another person I could not talk to about matters raised in the letter.

I have a couple of more points, Mr. Chairman, before I close. The letter that affected me also silenced a Cabinet Minister directly, Mr. Handley, and this had an effect on Cabinet on this issue because, Mr. Chairman, the process also took out Mr. Antoine, who was the backup representative on that committee and Mrs. Groenewegen. That took them out of the Cabinet consultation process as well. In effect, what was left was basically a runt Cabinet and it was greatly diminished in dealing with this important issue.

Mr. Chairman, Cabinet government is central to our democracy and by removing three Members of our seven-Member Cabinet to deal with this issue, the Cabinet became very emasculated.

Mr. Chairman, the vital question that remains for me is where did the authority for the special committee to take on the quasi-judicial power, where did that come from? Certainly I do not see it in the terms of reference and I do not recall debating it in this House so the question remains for me, where did it come from?

Mr. Chairman, I do not know all the answers but I am concerned enough, and I think all of us should be, to ask these questions because that is what our democracy is all about.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, this exercise with dealing with the current conflict issue has come at a considerable cost in both time and public funds. No doubt it can be argued that the issues raised are very important but, Mr. Chairman, in my view, the public interest and other issues, such as the cost to the public purse, are important enough to consider alongside these issues.

I hope my colleagues will consider these thoughts that we need to exam and learn from this conflict exercise and there is no doubt that we need to. We can do so in an open and candid manner and learn lessons from it or we can fail to do so and be doomed to repeat what I have pointed out here that I have not had answers to.

I want to leave this House, Mr. Chairman, on the subject in my opening remarks. I will have questions and comments through when we debate the recommendations but I want to leave this House with some prescient words from the American statesman, Benjamin Franklin, that those who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Mr. Chairman, let us not fear to speak out for the temporary safety of silence. Thank you.