Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my apologies. It was not appropriate for me to use the words ulterior motive, so I will retract that and refrain from saying that again.

Mr. Speaker, I apologize for having a very disoriented statement here because I really was not planning on doing this. What forced me to do this is in reflecting on what transpired in these hallways this morning. Understanding the seriousness of what is going on here, I feel compelled to get up and speak. Please accept my apologies if I do not sound as organized as I should.

What I would like to say to the people is that yesterday in this House, until the wee hours of the night, we discussed the report of the Special Committee on Conflict Process. This committee is a committee that was set up by this House to review two things. One is the allegation of bias made by former Minister Groenewegen with respect to the way she was being treated by the Conflict Commissioner.

The second issue the committee was tasked to deal with was to find out what had gone on and find out the details of the circumstances surrounding the taping by Minister Groenewegen of the private conversation between the Conflict Commissioner and the principal secretary, John Bayly.

Mr. Speaker, as I stated yesterday, this was a very unusual process in that it was without a lot of precedence. The committee had to figure out the rules as they went along.

It was apparent from the process that the committee decided to adopt a process known as a quasijudicial process, which cannot really be defined but it is something that mixes legal process and parliamentary process. All of this power comes from what is known as parliamentary privilege.

I feel very strongly, Mr. Speaker, that yesterday, the report itself was so heavy-handed that we have resulted in destroying the reputations and careers of not only the Minister but the Conflict Commissioner as well. We did serious damage to a CBC reporter, Lee Selleck, and we have damaged the reputations of many other civil servants.

Now, I understand that with the parliamentary privilege, apparently we have the power to do that. However, like I said before, we have to be responsible in how we react to this. I hope I am not out of line in saying that in listening to what went on yesterday and listening to the Premier's answer, there are people here who feel that he has lost the confidence of the House. I respect that we always have the option to question the confidence of the Premier or any of Ministers. However, I do not accept that any of that process should go on by secret ballot or that all those discussions should take place behind the scenes.

Mr. Speaker, just to give an idea about how unfair and what an abuse of power this process was that was conducted in this House by honourable Members here -- I respect the right of the Members here to speak. It is important to me that I have the right to speak and I have to give that right to everyone else.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday by a motion in this House, the House ruled that the Conflict Commissioner should be removed from office. This is a person who has had 20 years of legal experience, who is very new on the job and at the stroke of a pen, without any due process, we have voted her out of this House.