Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I too had a lot of time to think over the weekend and also received a ton of calls. I think that at the end of the day I feel that in order to do the right thing and to do justice to not only this Legislature but to the people that we serve in the Northwest Territories, the only thing you really have besides your name is your credibility. Can he be trusted? Also what do you stand for as a person or an individual?
For myself I have been involved in politics in one way or another with regard to regional, community, territorial and now the Legislative Assembly for almost 18 years. One thing that you find in people is what do you stand for, what do you believe in and can you be trusted.
For myself I have been pressured to basically a point of being told to resign because of my stance on this issue. I will not resign because of something that I feel strongly about. Without the credibility of government, the top office in the land can do things over and above the rules, regulations, policies and processes and making the final unilateral decision by knowingly signing a contract that was not going to be signed by the principal secretary because she did not feel comfortable tells me that there was something wrong.
With regard to the justification for what I see happening is that I have gone through this in the 13th Assembly and it is not much different than having to go through an Auditor General's report or filing something with the Conflict Commissioner. At the end of the day my view is that what happened in the 13th Assembly does not even come close to what we are dealing with here today. Yes there were some irregularities with regard to things that happened, but with respect to Mr. Morin he made the right choice, did the right thing and he did resign, step aside. As a government we were able to move on. The Deputy Premier of the day filled in until we had a leadership review. The sky did not fall in. The government did not stop operating. Programs and services continued to be delivered.
Yet the threats are out there of how this government and the Territory as we know it is going to collapse around us. That is a myth. Everyone knows that the government is not run by the people in this room. The government is run y the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy of deputy ministers, assistant deputy ministers, people with regard to the policy area, the administration area, the finance area. That is the real government. It is not the people sitting in this room. Yet the threats that are out there of how this is going to stall negotiations, stall the relationship with communities, stall the relationship with the First Nation governments is outrageous.
When a Member of this Legislature is being threatened to resign if you do not support the Premier, to me it is no less than what you see in some third world countries. For him to go out of the way and make that suggestion to get support from communities is pathetic.
All I have in regard to life is who I am and what I believe in and what comes from my heart. I was totally offended when I got that information from my community leaders. When I spoke to the people who really count, our elders, the young people, people in our communities that all they want is a job. All they want is to have a roof over their heads. All they want is to have the ability to be able to get some programs out of this government without being told, 'Sorry, there is no money, can't help you, you don't meet our criteria, we have rules in place, you have to follow the rules." But as a government we can break the rules anytime we feel like it.
For myself, on Friday I was basically totally sick to my stomach to see what was happening in this House. Sick to see some people opposite in regard to so-called Ministers making statements that they can live with what happened here. Yet the same Ministers are responsible to run our bureaucracy, to run our government. Everyone of us took an oath of office when we came in here, that we are not above the law.
What we do is under a microscope day in, day out. You leave here, every move you make is being followed or watched or spoken to by someone. I find it awfully hard to basically think that we can go ahead knowing that there has been some major problems in regard to how we deal with things.
We had an inquiry in regard to what happened in the 13th Assembly. There were tons of recommendations and reports and changes to rules and regulations of how deputy ministers will handle themselves, how deputy ministers deal with contracts, how the government as we know it will deal with individual contracts of staff and whatnot. They were put there for a reason, so that it would not happen again. That was the 13th Assembly. That was like yesterday.
Yet, what did we do? We break the same rules that were in place so that this would not happen again. Here we are, it has happened again.
I think that as a government and as a Legislative Assembly I think we have to look within ourselves to really see who we represent and exactly what do we stand for as individuals. I for one supported the Premier the last time around. Yes I was pressured by my leaders to support him, because I was under the understanding that the information that was being provided at the time was true, above board and was something that we had an obligation to do through a contract.
Now we find out through the Auditor General's report that the individual was supposed to be compensated for $133,000 but instead we rip up that contract, write a new contract and give her a contract for $404,000. On top of that, we put a binding wording in the agreement where we cannot take her to court or we cannot get that money back.
I think as a government to protect the so-called public purse and ensuring that we have the resources to run the government and making sure it is being accounted for, I do not see it.
I for one did not expect to be going through this process once again, but I believe we have other avenues open to us. I do not think anyone has moved under the possibility of filing a complaint with the Conflict Commissioner, but the option is there. I think for me this goes right down to the moral question of trust. If we cannot trust the people that run our government then who can we trust?
I think we should all take a really good look at who do we really represent here? What about the seniors in our communities who cannot get fuel subsidies? What about the person that cannot get housing because we basically do not have the space? I think those are the people that really count in this society that we are in now, not developing a society so that it is top heavy, so that basically everything at the top is controlled by a few bureaucrats and we basically benefit a few of our so-called friends at the expense of everybody else.
Again, I would like to state that I am totally appalled at what is going on here and I will be supporting a motion asking for the Premier to resign. Mahsi.