Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do not know what we are accomplishing here today by repeating -- I think every Member has basically said the same thing as they said on Friday so I guess I will repeat my comments. My position has not changed. I think that a decision was made by the Premier that was a bad decision and was an error in judgment. However, it was based on advice that was received.
A concern for us as Members -- in March I believe it was Mr. Dent that had posed the question to our staff and their response was that we had an excellent core of advisors. We have experienced lawyers who are well versed in labour laws. These are the people that we have entrusted to guide us through. It proves that some of their advice was either not followed or it was not good advice. We are asking for the Premier's resignation, but maybe we should be looking at the staff to resign also, and our lawyers that provided this type of advice.
We are also hearing our MLAs. Many of them are at odds with their communities now. There are a lot of letters and phone calls going back and forth, so they are not taking their constituents' advice. Maybe they should resign also. Our conflict of interest committee has just found out that there is a ruling that provided they were wrong too. Should they resign? We are now in a process where we are probably going to have to pay out some money there.
Mr. Chairman, I, like just about everybody here, over the weekend was contacted and today, and maybe it is because of the positions we took on Friday. The majority of the people that contacted me -- I am not going to say all of them -- but the majority were in favour of keeping the Premier on. I was contacted by many of the community leaders from the different communities across the North, and many youth. I talked with several of the grand chiefs. A lot of them voiced concerns similar to what I had on Friday. A change in leadership now will affect many things, and we have to realize that not only the Legislative Assembly is affected when we remove a position such as the Premier.
Mr. Chairman, I said it before. A bad decision was made. A mistake was made. We cannot get the money back. What is it going to cost us if we remove the Premier, and does it end there? Who else has to resign? We have a motion that is going to be put on the floor that shows that it does not stop at only the Premier. We may be all facing an election, not that it is a bad thing. However, we have a lot of business on hand. Does that go by the wayside? The conflict of interest process has cost us over $2 million. I was corrected the other day. My numbers added up to around $2 million, but apparently it is more than that.
We have a number of reports that have yet to be tabled. If we are going to go to the polls, what happens to the Special Committee on Languages? Where does their report go? Where is the Non-Tax-Based Committee that I chaired? Where does their report go? The sunset clause? We spent well over $1.8 million on that. Are we going to put that by the wayside, just forget it and walk away? I worked hard for schools in my riding, for roads and different issues and initiatives. I have been working with the bridge project, the bridge committee. All that goes on hold if we go to the polls right now.
I am not afraid to go to the polls as many of you have said that is where we are going to end up, but I think we have to put some thought into it. If we are worried about wasting $250,000 then we had better worry what it is going to cost us. It is going to cost us well over $250,000. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.