Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I think that it is fundamental in any democracy that we have an open process that people feel comfortable, knowing they are above board on what is going on, and have faith in our political institutions. However, when we start hearing of allegations made, tape recordings are being conducted by senior officers in this government, the Ministers...we do have a serious allegation.

We cannot allow it to go by without us not having a process to clarify it. I as a Member have second thoughts. I have had private conversations with Ministers in their offices. I have made phone calls to particular Ministers, wondering at the end of that phone call, is it being recorded?

It may be funny to some of the Cabinet Ministers, but when these allegations are made in a public process this committee has gone through, which is now part of a report that is tabled in this Legislature, there are some serious allegations here. For us to think well, it has been done, there has been a withdrawal of a motion in regards to bias and that is the end of it.

This is not the end of it. This is now at the surface. This has come to the public light. We have to deal with it in regard to the seriousness of these allegations. I for one feel that because of these allegations, it makes it that much more for us to get that public confidence back that is out there, knowing that the next time the people from the public come to a government office or talk to a particular Minister or Ministers, they want to know exactly how private is that discussion that is going on between yourself and a Minister? Or yourself and the principle secretary? Is there privacy in your day-to-day dialogue with the government of the day? If it is not, we have to get to the bottom of this. I think for us not to allow this committee to conclude its response with regards to motion 3, we will seriously do injustice to the process that has taken place to date.

This could have been over and done with months ago. All it had to do was for the Conflict of Interest Commissioner to table her report on an allegation by a member of the public regarding a particular Minister.

Yet we find ourselves having to go through this process. Through this process, we have opened up the box and now we are finding there are some serious allegations being made regarding taped telephone conversations. I feel that is serious.

I for one feel that we have to have a thorough review of all information in regard to this case, and also who has been involved and how deep does this practice go in this government. Is it in only one Minister's office? Is it several Ministers? Is it the deputy minister's office that these recordings are going on in? Is it within the whole government that every time you talk to an official within the government, your discussions are being recorded?

These are serious, serious allegations. I think when you hear about Watergate and now the Legislative Gate that we just opened, we have some serious allegations to look at as soon as we can and have something back to the House when we sit in October to deal with the overall question of public confidence in this government.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask for a recorded vote for this motion.