Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as many have said, it would be easy to sit and vote on it when the call for a vote came up. This is something that I go back to before we elected Members to the Executive Council. It is about your word, Mr. Speaker. It is about when we first meet each other around this table, some of us may know a little bit about each other, especially those who have been in this arena before. Others, we come here and all we know is a name or somebody else telling us about an individual. When we cast that vote we hope to have the opportunity to speak to the individual, and try to find out a little bit more about them before we decide if that individual would be a good Cabinet Minister.
Mr. Speaker, I will say publicly that alcoholism is a bad thing in the Northwest Territories. Mr. Zoe has come clean in saying that he has a problem. Mr. Speaker, it was a concern for a number of Members of this Assembly before it came to this situation. Members had asked Mr. Zoe about his situation and if it would impact on his ability to do his job. Members took his word that it would not interfere. Knowing the situation we are in, he's gone a long way to address some of the initial concerns that have come forward, and that is tough to do. Mr. Speaker, some of us in this arena have walked through that door ourselves in the past, and have seen the destructive effects it can have. It is unfortunate that we have to have this here, but nobody else can do this except for us, as Mr. McLeod says. It is difficult, but we are the ones who police ourselves. In this Assembly, in this arena, all we get to come in with and go out with in a sense of integrity is who you are. When you say something, is your word valid? Are you good for what you say? A lot of this is built around that. If Members cannot trust a Minister when he's responding to questions or information being provided and always second guessing and wondering if that is true, that does a lot of damage for our system and the way we operate.
I have only known Mr. Zoe for a short time and again it's one of those things, when you are in the Northwest Territories, it's a small place. You have baggage you have to deal with and you respond to those when questions are put forward to you. Unfortunately, in this situation when the question was put forward, the answer was it's not going to be a problem. Well, six months into it, it is a problem. Mr. Speaker, I can speak from experience because I have walked through that door of having to admit I had a problem and had to just about lose it all to finally wake up and say it is a problem. I can't fix it by tinkering. I have got to fix it by making life choices.
This motion, unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, is one of those events in a person's life where you could hit rock bottom. I hope Mr. Zoe will come out of this and get that help he said he would get. But when I operate, I have to operate upfront. When I meet with individuals, I tell them this is the way I operate.
Mr. Speaker, the motion that is before us, I would have to support. Your word is your word. Let your yes be your yes, and your no be your no. It can't be a maybe, not in this arena. So I am sad to say this in this situation, but I will be supporting this motion. Thank you.