Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, as a Member of the Legislative Assembly, of this Legislature, I have the opportunity to also enter and say a few things about this topic that we are debating right now, the Auditor General's report to the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories on the termination compensation for two senior officials, as well as the Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight's report.

The Auditor General has made her report that there are some problems in how the termination of John Bayly and Lynda Sorensen took place. As a member of Cabinet, I take the responsibility for being involved in the decision to approve the compensation and benefit package. People that know what happens in Cabinet know that decisions of this nature are managed by our officials, and we depend on our officials for their expertise and knowledge of how to carry out the policies of our government. As Ministers we take what is put forward to us and we ask the questions and we approved the package. I take responsibility for my involvement in that.

I just want to say that I have previous knowledge in the last government as the previous Premier taking over from a situation such as this where I had to be involved in the termination of a previous official, the principal secretary, and upon seeing the type of package of benefits that we offered to our very senior officials it is very generous. I think the only way I view this recommendation here is by the suggestions and findings of the Auditor General that we have been too generous.

I know what Members have said about glossing it over, but I do not intend to. I know that it is very serious. The specifics of what can we do about it so that this does not happen again. We have to learn from this issue, but the issue I want to talk about of learning is the way we do the benefits packages to our senior officials. I think what the Auditor General is saying is that there was room here for changes, and through the discussion and negotiations, arrangements were made that were far too generous than what was intended to be. I think that is an area where I would like to focus. We have many deputy ministers, assistant deputy ministers and presidents of the different agencies we have -- even our political staff here as executive are also in that category. What it says here to me is that we have to look at it and we should do something about it.

A year ago, according to the report, was when this Legislative Assembly asked the Auditor General to make this report. Like everybody else here, we have been going through this for a long time. As the Member for Deh Cho mentioned, we are paying $2 million already. I think it is $2 million plus, and if you look at the Conflict of Interest Commissioner's court case of Judge Vertes it makes mention that it is not over yet. There will be extra costs that we are going to incur because of what has happened here in this House. We are not finished this whole debate yet, but we should try to find some way to put it to rest.

I welcome the debate here today and the two recommendations that the Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight have made. I agree with the first recommendation that this Legislative Assembly accept the Auditor General's conclusion that this government did not handle the matter reasonably and with prudence. I accept that. However, I cannot accept the second recommendation that the Premier submit his resignation as Premier and member of the Executive Council. I have to support the Premier.

Some of the statements that have already been made here in this House with regard to the length of this debate and what we are doing as a government and as a Legislative Assembly and what the people in our communities expect us to do on their behalf, certainly we have to look at how we expend the dollars. There are instances in this Legislature when I have been grilled over some of the actions I intend to take and I hope to correct those before this session ends. However, this is how we should do things, learn from each other and get direction from each other on how to do things better on behalf of our people. I intend to do that in this House.

I do not think that the best move is to remove the Premier. I think that with respect to the work we are doing collectively that would disrupt some of the main issues that we are working on. With the length of time we have left in this House -- next November 28th I believe will be the next election -- we have probably maybe six months of real work to do before people go to the polls. My honourable colleague, Joe, is talking about maybe having it happen sooner. That has also crossed my mind. What are we going to do here if this is so bad? Can we start all over again or can we not move ahead? I think today if this motion asking the Premier comes up I think I welcome that motion and perhaps, whichever way it goes, we could move on from there. At this point in time I still support Steve Kakfwi as Premier of the Northwest Territories. Mahsi cho.