Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I stated in my Member's statement, I will be elaborating on some of the points I brought out in my Member's statement, particularly the correspondence and phone calls I have been receiving from home in the last couple of days in relation to what is happening in this House. In particular, as it calls into question the confidence in the Premier.
Mr. Speaker, I have received more letters and more phone calls in the last two days than I have received in the last six years that I have been in this House, on any issue. That suggests, Mr. Speaker, that people at home are watching and they are concerned about what is happening in this House and how we are conducting ourselves.
I have been told that we are now competing with The Simpsons for popularity and comedy. That, Mr. Speaker, is something that is very serious. If that is in fact how we are being envisioned by the public we should all have another look at ourselves.
Maybe we do not realize it because we are not watching ourselves. We are, in fact, part of this show and the people are expressing it.
I think that is very serious because it takes away from the importance of this House, of the importance of us as Members. I think we should really take a serious look at how we conduct ourselves and whether we are conducting ourselves personally to represent our own interests or whether we represent the people at home.
I would like to make two points here that I think are important and that have been expressed to me. One is on the need for a secret vote when we are not -- in any of our elections, a secret vote is normally used when there are two candidates or more. There is no election here. We are just supposed to show whether we support someone or not. We are not supposed to show it as do we personally support it, but do we support him as representatives of the people we are elected by?
How can we possibly do that with a secret vote? I have been told that we are not to take part in a secret vote because it will not be expressive by showing my people whether I am voting as they wish me to vote. I will make that point. I do not believe that the secret vote will accomplish what it is supposed to do and that is to express our public confidence -- not our own confidence -- our public confidence or our public non-confidence in this government or in this Premier. That is the point. It is a very important point that we are not to vote as we feel like it, but as our people feel like it.
If there is no other avenue for me as a Member to express my public vote then I should not be taking part. The unfortunate part about that is that it would be considered as an absent vote. It would be a vote of abstention. That is not what I intend to do. If in fact there is a call for a secret vote, I will stand and I will express myself. I do not really mind which public forum that would be, whether it is in a leadership committee or not. If it is against the rules, then you are going to have to rule me out of order, but that is the position I am going to take.
The other position my people would say is quite important is whether or not we should have the ability to use public funds, public time and public resources to conduct ourselves properly, to deal with our own problems as Members. People question that, whether we should have the ability to use the time of this House, the time of the government and the time allotted to us as Members to resolve our own personal problems and conduct. It has been suggested that perhaps we should have another look at our legislation that governs this, that we do this in our own time and at our own expense because we do not seem to have anybody else who can do this for us and they are not prepared to pay for it.
Why do they bring this forward? We only need to look at what has happened over the last three or four years and how much it has cost this government in regard to conflict issues -- millions of dollars that we could have spent for social programs, on highways and then maybe there would not be a need for this highway toll existing or putting in place. That is what people are saying.
If we cannot conduct ourselves as professionals then we are in the wrong forum and we should be in kindergarten, not here.
Maybe I am a little strong in expressing what my people say, but that is the message. I think we should give serious consideration to the suggestions that we keep our own private problems to ourselves, behind closed doors if necessary, but we deal with the good of the public in this House and nothing else. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
-- Applause