Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, as a Member of the Rules committee, have debated this motion and the consideration of what motion to bring forward within the committee. I do support the motion. I have some reservations. I am willing to go forward with this at the moment especially because it is a trial and it’s going to be a trial period. I think we need to see whether or not it’s going to work.

I have my reservations because I am concerned that it will be a distraction for some Members to work on the computer instead of paying attention to the work before the Committee of the Whole, whatever that happens to be. But I also temper that by thinking about how many people are not in the House when we are in Committee of the Whole at any one time on a regular basis. So we play one off against the other. I am not sure which is worse.

I am concerned that somebody working on a laptop next to another Member could be a distraction. But, again, I think we need the trial period to figure out whether or not that’s going to be a problem.

Probably my main reason for supporting this is I am, like Ms. Lee, not wanting to contribute to the waste of our trees. It boggles my mind how much paper we use and how much paper we throw away and how much paper we unnecessarily print more than once.

So I see this as an opportunity for us to allow the Assembly, us as Members, to evolve towards e-documents, and e-documents hopefully on a constant basis. We wouldn’t be able to do that if we don’t have some sort of a communication device for us to be able to look up documents. But even the motions, these motions as they are presented to us, we don’t really need to see them on a piece of paper. We could be looking at them on a screen. Complicated documents, that’s a little different, but when it’s a simple motion…One of the examples

that just drives me crazy is the Premier will get up and announce the absence of a Minister and it’s a three-line statement but we have to have it on a piece of paper and we take that piece of paper and we turf it, hopefully recycle it.

So those sorts of things are a concern for me and I think for us to try it out, this particular suggestion, may prove that, yes, some things are okay and maybe there are drawbacks, but we’re never going to know if we don’t try it, so that’s why I am in support. Thank you, Mr. Chair.