Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank Mr. Roland for his generous offer, and I am very happy to take it. I apologize to Members for my remarks earlier. I can tell you that I have a very strong and sincere desire for this Legislature to look credible and to be accountable. I guess recently, we do not appear that way to the public. I know that people are wondering why we are still embroiled and submerged in this debate that started so long ago, because of license plates -- innocuous enough -- and the fact that a lawyer forgot to strike out a name as a board of director during legal filing.

The cost to this Legislature and to the people of the North has been immeasurable. The consequences of it I believe are going to be felt across this country, not only in the Northwest Territories.

In a recent Supreme Court ruling John Vertes handed down -- and it is tabled in this House -- speaks to the fact that we make mistakes and that we have to account for it. These two things are connected, for me.

There are a number of issues that I need to speak to. The first one, of course, I will speak to is the Auditor General's report. The report is, the report that we take seriously, the Auditor General had her staff come here, do interviews, go through files, and they accepted certain documentation and others they said were not relevant. They have a way of doing things that, as they say themselves, is black and white.

I accept that the recommendations, or the conclusions of the recommendation, of the Auditor General and find this government to have not followed their policies. I look back on what we have done and I ask the staff, could we have done some things differently? On the years of service, for instance, that is the understanding that every deputy minister in this government has, that they will get one month for every year of service, not the number of years they were a deputy minister, but the total number of years they served this government. Previous packages to deputy ministers who left this government had that. There were deputy ministers who left with 25 months, just based on the years of service.

So while the Auditor General says that this is totally unacceptable and outside the policy, it is my understanding that what we are asking is, can we take that out because the Auditor General says it is not in our policy? Deputy ministers, senior managers, people who serve at pleasure do not have the protection of unions. And it is true, Mr. Bell, that they serve at pleasure. Every one of these deputy ministers can be given a days notice, two minutes notice and say you are gone. We have to show some cause for it, that is true.

What the Auditor General did not accept is that in the case of Lynda Sorensen, the Cabinet eliminated her job while she was still employed by us. The reason the Auditor General does not accept that is because there is no record of decision. So the proper documentation was not there. As far as they are concerned, her job was not eliminated.

So we do not have trouble with what the Auditor General says. Of course we can get rid of people at pleasure. We have to pay, but we can get rid of them. That is true. It is a different set of circumstances when you do away with somebody's job while they are in it, and then later also say a Minister has said they will not work with you anymore, so we have a problem.

So not only was her job done away with, but she was also forced into her resignation. I tell you that not to refute the Auditor General's report, but certainly because she says and her staff says "We deal in black and white things. No record of decision -- we do not accept it. As far as we are concerned, the chief of staff position still exists."

But in this Legislature, I announced to you that Cabinet had decided that the chief of staff was going to be done away with and I announced it. It was a fact. It is no longer on organization charts. This is what we have done.

Looking back, as you know, we had a motion of confidence. This Legislature went to extreme lengths to deal with an issue. We dealt with it. The day after that, we had a threat of a Minister resigning, in my view, if this was not dealt with. So I was forced to deal with it. The choice was clear. The staff person went, the Minister stayed. The instructions were do it and do it quickly.

You know, what political motive do you have to try to continue saying or wanting to believe that I was involved in it? The Auditor General says I was not involved in it. There is no evidence to support that fact. Politically, if you want to believe it, that is something else and you should say that, that somehow we just believe you did something wrong. We just cannot prove it. That is okay to say that but say it.

All I can tell you is that was the instruction; do it and do it quickly. In retrospect, I should have said just get it done and take a week, two weeks, but we wanted conclusion. That was the political situation in which I dealt with it and the staff dealt with it. The Auditor General is totally oblivious to that because she is dealing with things in hindsight. She was not there. She did not go through the things I had went through. She did not deal with the stuff that the staff dealt with. It is hindsight.

There is a question about the additional pay, the additional months that were added on to what we gave her because of her years of service. As I understand it, we gave her one month for every year of service, as we have done with every other deputy minister who has ever served this government, and we are going to probably do, either because it is our policy or because the courts will force us to, because the contracts we have signed with them will force us to.

Cabinet has said we take the Auditor General's report seriously, therefore we are prepared to work with you. You are very concerned about the fact that there are allegations we did not follow our policies, that we are too generous, because concerns about the performance appraisal, which I will address shortly. We want to address that.

We made a decision yesterday. We offered it to you. We said let us meet so we can convey that.

Mr. Chairman...