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.