Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also will not take a lot of time to speak to this motion. I think we have been round and round this issue now for some time, and I know that we have important House business that we need to get to. The clock is ticking and I do not imagine for one minute, Mr. Speaker, that anything I say here today is going to cause some Members who have already made up their mind to have a crisis of conscience, as it were, and switch their votes, so let me just say, Mr. Speaker, that I think the Auditor General's report we know, clearly very critical, suggested that the spending in the matter of these severance packages was irresponsible. I think very few of us would doubt or try to refute that now. One of my colleagues has suggested that this is absolutely not defendable, this conduct, and I would have to agree with her, Mr. Speaker.
At times, the government's justification has been certainly something that I have taken objection to. I do not think the explanation from this government that you had to be there at the time to understand the political circumstances washes with me. I am certain it probably does not wash with the public. There are not two sets of rules, Mr. Speaker. There is not a set of rules to be used when it is politically expedient, and when we are on...(inaudible)...footing, and there are mitigating circumstances, there simply is not, Mr. Speaker. We have one set of rules that must be followed.
Mr. Speaker, it is the nature of the job of Premier, and it may not be fair, but it is the nature of that job, the nature of other top jobs, that there is a very, very small margin of error, Mr. Speaker, at the top. It is a very unforgiving position. We have seen recent examples of staff, a former principal secretary who was forced to leave this government because they made a mistake. Did we ask the Members of this House, or were the Members of this House convinced that this man could no longer add value to this government? No, Mr. Speaker, very few of us doubt that. Simply, Mr. Speaker, somebody had to be accountable.
We know, despite what may be interesting reading, Mr. Speaker, that this is not about personalities. It is not about feuds. It is not about alternate agendas. It is about accountability.
Mr. Speaker, if all of the guards at the local prison had fallen asleep and there was a breakout and the town was in a melee and it was ransacked, we would be going to the Minister of Justice and demanding his job -- not because he was responsible, not because he let people out of prison, but because he is the man at the top who must be answerable.
Mr. Speaker, very small margin for error. So quite simply, we are asking who signed this contract? We are not trying to figure out what the motivation was. We are not trying to suggest that there was some sneaky plot on the part of the Premier here. We do not even need to get into motive, Mr. Speaker. It does not concern us. All we need to know was that the man who signed the contract is the one who has to be accountable.
Mr. Speaker, I cannot turn a blind eye to what we have seen and to what the Auditor General has said. As Mr. Roland has indicated, it seems this government is willing to chase people to all corners of the earth, Heaven forbid they manage to claim some income when they are filing for income support, but on the other hand, we are willing to say that $250,000 is okay, Mr. Speaker. I cannot say that. I cannot turn a blind eye. I am not here to try to somehow determine what the motivation was, whether there was motivation, because I think it is irrelevant. I will say this, Mr. Speaker, we know that the motion to ask the Premier to resign was defeated in this House, and I respect the will of this House. But Mr. Speaker, the reason we are pushing for an election is because we think it is an important enough issue to take to the public and to ask them their feelings, and to ask them to return the people who they think have acted properly, Mr. Speaker.
Certainly when we talk about an election, there certainly has to be some critical look given to Cabinet's role in this issue. Now, whether it was the Premier, the staff, or whoever that briefed Cabinet about the size of these contracts and the fact that the money was over and above what the contract spoke to, and whoever briefed Cabinet about the fact that maximum...