Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the spirit of showing the respect for the convention of this House, I will try to be discreet about what I say but I think that what I have to say here is of the level of importance that I must push the envelope to reveal as much as possible without disrespecting the process, Mr. Speaker. I take your advice as noted and I will make my best effort.

Mr. Speaker, I feel that it is really important that I stand here and speak because I want to prevent the approach in this House that serious allegations or expressions are made as to the confidence that Members have of the Premier or of the government, without having a forum for the Members to make their statements about why it is that they are questioning the confidence of the Premier.

Mr. Speaker, I was not thinking about doing this statement until I heard the Premier's emergency statement. It is obvious to me that the Premier is talking to the people and asking the people to respond about whether or not this Premier has the support of the people and therefore, this Assembly. I do not think that it is fair to ask the people to provide input without giving them information so I am doing this in the hopes that other Members might feel compelled to make their position known about where they stand on this government and what they think of the Premier so that we can move on and govern.

Mr. Speaker, I said yesterday when we were discussing the special committee report, I acknowledged that this House and the Members have a lot of power under what is known as power of privilege. However, I also firmly believe that for every ounce of power that we have here as Members under parliamentary privilege, we have to have as much, if not more, responsibility in how we use that.

All the power that we have comes from the people and people need to know. I respect the sense of fairness and sense of integrity and sense of rationality that people out there have to make a final judgment about whether or not what is being conducted here and what is being done here behind the scenes is something that should be condoned. I do not think that we could expect the people to make that decision unless all of us, and of course it is up to the Members, but I am taking the action to stand up and say this is what I know. I am prepared to be judged by the people out there and the people here and in the end by my electorate.

Mr. Speaker, if I am not out of line, I would just like to say that what is happening here is that there are Members here -- and the Members I have mentioned -- who feel that even though yesterday we went through the motions posed in the special committee report and had very detailed discussions about it. The last item in that report had to do with confidence in the Premier and the Premier's office.

It is a very innocently stated motion, Mr. Speaker, and every Member who voted on it explained where they stood on it and why. However, it seems like there was an ulterior motive to that motion and that is that a suggestion made for a certain action has to be taken by the Premier and if not, it is a vote of confidence on him.

All of these discussions were held in private. I am told that I cannot speak about it. I do not really understand why I cannot speak about it because if I do not speak about it and no one else speaks about it, how would the people out there know that there is a palace coup going on here with paper, in secret discussions behind the scene?

This is not just about the removal of the Premier. This is not just about the removal of Mr. Stephen Kakfwi out of the office of the Premier. This is about overthrowing the government. This is about putting a halt to the discussions we are having with Ottawa on devolution, resource revenue sharing, Aboriginal Pipeline Working Group working with the government and the producers -- we are so close to arriving at a serious decision there. This is about stopping all of the work that we have done in the last two years and making this government a lame duck government no matter who sits on the Premier's seat.

One of the motives I have in doing this today, Mr. Speaker, is that I am simply sick and tired of this Legislature looking like it is a banana republic.

-- Interjection