I’d like to thank the Members for the comments to this motion. I see there are lots of people in the gallery and I’m sure there are people around the Territory and perhaps some parts of Canada who are watching, to see how we’re going to emerge from this motion.

I’ve been here for 10 years. I was elected in 1999 and this is my third Assembly. In that time I have seen a lot of things. So what is happening today is new in some ways and not in others. I see that there are lots of people who watch us who are more familiar with how the consensus system works and how conflicts arise and how some of them are resolved.

But I have to say that in the five situations where Ministers were removed, two of them had to do with conflict resolution and three of them had to do with some matters involving court. What is new here is that we’ve never had a motion to remove the entire Cabinet. Obviously this is a very serious motion and I have listened very carefully to what the Members are saying, because obviously there’s a reason for bringing that forward.

What I’m hearing is lack of communication or breakdown in communication and process, and some of the Members have said it’s an unhappy situation to have to tell their constituents negative news. But that is new to me. If we are judged by negative news that we need to give, I would suggest to anybody else who wants to run for Minister of Health and Social Services that they

may not want to consider that portfolio. It is a really high burden to put on any political leader that you cannot give me that news and that that will be the standard to which you will judge.

I just want to say, obviously I understand that this is a very difficult situation for everybody and everybody has given a really well thought out opinion about why they stand on this motion on one side or the other. But I was thinking this morning and over the last few days about how we got to where we are and how we get out of it. This morning, when I was listening to Mr. Miltenberger’s interview and the reaction from the budget, in most jurisdictions the confidence motion is on the budget. That is the most important thing. When you look at us, the general response we’re getting from the motion out of the budget is that Regular Members here who support the motion support the budget.

For any government a budget is the most authoritative and legitimate document on the confidence of the government. So when I look at the budget and see if we have worked together for the last two months, because we have, because under consensus government Members have a preview to the budget document first. If we were able to work out an agreement on a $1.3 billion expenditure and set out priorities and where the capital money will be spent or program money, surely we have more in common and we have some kind of system that works here and allows us to do that. I understand that there are differences, but surely we have to look for what is common ground that we can build on.

I think we’ve all been influenced by President Obama, who’s been elected in the United States, and his favourite saying -- and he is, I think, spreading the word around the world -- that you can spend all your time thinking about what divides anybody. We can spend all our time thinking about what divides us, what makes us upset, what’s not working for me. But we can also spend that time thinking about what works for us, what unites us, what is a common ground.

Another favourite saying that I used to hear from President Clinton is what is wrong in America, not saying what is wrong in America cannot be fixed, but what is right about America. I have to believe that as long as I’m a Member here, the 19 of us are here, we’ve been elected duly by the people who sent us here, and we are here to do good work. There has to be some kind of common ground we can work on.

Mr. McLeod put out a really strong statement about the state of where we are, and I think it is worth reflecting on what we are doing, regroup, work on a communication channel, make it public. But I do

believe that at the end of the day if we could agree on a $1.3 billion expenditure, understanding that we will have some debates and arguments on that, then surely we have a lot more in common than others.

With respect to any remarks made here about the work I have done as the Minister of Health and Social Services, I have already stated that I take those comments very seriously. Before I announced the changes to the supplementary health benefits I went around to Members’ offices and a lot of Members said to put it aside here, take it to the side and it will get better. Member Yakeleya told me this. Member Menicoche said that. Member Beaulieu said that. So I think I don’t want to create a feeling that we don’t have a mechanism to communicate with each other. We’re always here. We’re talking to each other. I could, one by one, talk to all 11 Members about some of the things they have asked me to do that we are working on.

I think this is a motion that has a serious message and it’s telling Cabinet and all the Ministers that we need to do better; some of us more than others. Surely if the 19 of us could put our heads together we could work our way through this.

I also want to say that this is not the first time in this Assembly as this Cabinet that we have been questioned with a non-confidence motion. In a way this was the biggie, this was the super motion. There is a gauntlet thrown down. But I’m hoping that once we resolve this, that we respect the decision of the House, that we work together and that Members on that side know that myself as a Minister and the Cabinet are listening. Surely we are adult enough and are leaders enough that we can work out a process to work out the differences and also to pay attention to the fact that there’s a lot more that brings us together than what divides us.