The second thing I wanted to follow up on was
— let’s put it this way
— the potential
increasing conflict we have with the resolution of self-governance negotiations: MLAs that may end up being in a difficult position of basically serving two governments, one officially and one unofficially, when they are beneficiaries of those governments. I’m not levying accusations here or anything. I’m trying to highlight what’s potentially a new and increasing situation we have here.
To me, even a letter of recommendation from an individual — in this case our Premier, who was a beneficiary of the Inuvialuit…. This was an Inuvialuit company. When we’re dealing with something that potentially can directly benefit the beneficiaries, it’s placing an MLA in that position in a very difficult situation. I think our public expects rigour here to make sure that we deal with potential conflicts of interest. I’m just wondering if the Minister would think this does highlight a need for a review of our conflict of interest guidelines, given the settlement of self-government negotiations that are bound to put more and more of our MLAs in that sort of extraordinary level of potential for conflict of interest — serving two masters, so to speak.
I understand in this case the Premier, the Minister of Finance at the time, removed himself during discussions after he had written a letter of recommendation. But I’m just thinking that this is a sticky bunch of incidents or parameters in this situation, and perhaps it’s something that could be reviewed as potential for improving the process.