Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In signing my name to the conflict of interest complaint against the Premier, I accepted the process in place to deal with these types of concerns. On Friday last week we received the final ruling of the complaint that was filed by the six complainants. As I understood the process and agreed to it beforehand, I am willing to support the conclusions of the adjudicator. Therefore, I will be supporting this motion today to accept the report. However, in doing so, I want to be clear that I support the report in its entirety, not just the fact that the complaint was officially dismissed as a result of 106(1)(a)(ii), but also that the adjudicator was incredibly clear throughout his report that, and I quote from page 36, which I know has already been done but I’m going to do it anyway, that, “...Floyd Roland, the MLA for Inuvik Boot Lake performed his duties of office and arranged his private affairs in such a manner that he failed to maintain public confidence in his integrity, objectivity and impartiality as a result of entering into an intimate relationship with the Principal Clerk, Committees of the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly in the summer and/or fall months of 2008 without the timely disclosure of that relationship.”
It’s important to acknowledge and learn from the findings of the adjudicator in this case. It’s important to be aware that the precedent is set for future Assemblies. It’s clear from this report that it is
inappropriate for a Member of the Executive Council to be in an intimate relationship with the Clerk of Committees of the Legislative Assembly and, by the way, I’ll suggest that this precedent also applies to other staff that are present at committee meetings such as the research staff. Ultimately, it is an important precedent for the future operations of the Legislative Assembly.
I was pleased to see that in retrospect it was even confirmed by Ms. Russell. On page 19 of the report, Ms. Russell is quoted as stating the following when asked questions by the adjudicator, and here’s the quote:
Sole adjudicator asked: “Well, assuming your relationship with Mr. Roland continues, is it your view that you should ultimately be back performing the duties as Clerk of the House?”
The answer: “While Mr. Roland is a Member?”
The sole adjudicator followed it up with, “Yes.”
And then the following answer was: “I accept that it would be better for me to stay at Elections. I fully accept that.”
To me this demonstrates an awareness of the inappropriate nature of a relationship between the Clerk and a Member of the Executive Council. I hope for the remainder of this Assembly and in future Assemblies that Members, including Members of the Executive Council, remember this precedent and perform their duties of office and arrange their private affairs in such a manner as to maintain public confidence and trust in the integrity, objectivity and impartiality of those Members.
Since this situation first came to light, I had a number of conversations with the Premier. I’ve always been consistent in my approach and response to this clear and obvious breach. The Premier and I have always disagreed as to whether or not a breach had, in fact, occurred. Obviously, I believed, and have been proved correct, that the Premier had failed to arrange his private affairs in a manner to maintain public confidence and trust in the integrity, objectivity and impartiality of the Member. I’ve constantly indicated that in the absence of a formal apology, that acknowledges the severity of this behaviour and the negative impact it has had on the institution, that the Premier should, in fact, resign. I still feel this way today. I believe this report clearly demonstrates his guilt and, as a result, I feel that he should do the right and honourable thing.
Believing the Premier to be an honourable man who made a poor judgment call, I expected him to come forward with an honest apology or resign. Clearly, the Premier disagreed with me, which is his right, and felt that he had arranged his affairs in an appropriate manner. I respect his position and his belief and, as a result, obviously, no resignation or apology occurred.
After no apology was provided and no recognition of wrongdoing was provided, I was left with no option; therefore, I signed the complaint. To ensure the credibility and integrity of this government, I had no choice but to sign the official complaint.
For the sake of the families and the people of the NWT, I had honestly hoped that we wouldn’t have to come to this point. Shortly after signing the complaint letter and prior to the beginning of the hearing, I had an opportunity to speak with the Premier on the topic. I once again expressed my opinion and I also indicated that if I was wrong and the adjudicator ruled that the Premier did arrange his affairs in a manner to maintain public confidence and trust, that I would be first in line to apologize and I would go so far as to make an official apology in this House.
We have a decision from the adjudicator which clearly indicates that the Premier failed in this regard. This is once again confirmed by the adjudicator on page 35 when he states, and I quote, “Notwithstanding all of these factors that should have been apparent to Premier Roland, particularly the opportunities to disclose his relationship in early October, he chose to continue it in secret for another six weeks. Once he passed up these opportunities, it is my” -- Hughes’ -- “opinion that he foreclosed the possibility of any subsequent assessment of his actions relating to his disclosure from being judged as having occurred in a timely way.”
The fact is, he did not make the disclosure until he was satisfied that his relationship with Ms. Russell had cemented into a permanent one. What, of course, was wrong was that his primary responsibility to his colleagues in the House, the democratic institution they serve and the maintenance of public and trust of those who he was elected to lead, took second place during that period of time. To me, this means that the Premier’s primary responsibility to his colleagues in the House -- and those are Mr. Yakeleya, Ms. Bisaro, Mr. Jacobson, Mr. Hawkins, Mr. Beaulieu, Mrs. Groenewegen, Mr. Ramsay, Mr. Menicoche, Mr. Bromley, Mr. Krutko, the three Mr. McLeods, Mr. Miltenberger, Ms. Lee and Mr. Lafferty and even the Speaker, Mr. Delorey -- took second place during that period of time from September through the entire month of October and the 2008 October session until late November 2008, arguably even up to the receipt of this ruling. What’s more scathing, in my opinion, is that the public trust of those who he was elected to lead also took second place during that period of time. That’s a tough one for me.
When the Members who signed the complaint letter, without assistance of the government-funded lawyer, were able to provide enough evidence to clearly demonstrate that the Premier did fail in this
regard, the Premier’s government-paid lawyer was unable to convince the adjudicator that he should find that contravention had not occurred. Fortunately, he did have a great lawyer working for him. The lawyer was able to convince him -- and that’s Hughes -- and I once again quote from the report, specifically page 36, “Rather than me” -- Mr. Hughes -- “recommending to the Legislative Assembly the imposition of a punishment as provided for in section 106(1)(b) of the act, she” -- Ms. Peterson -- “submitted that my” -- Hughes -- “focus ought to be on section 106(1)(a)(ii), which sets out reasons why, notwithstanding a contravention of the provisions of the act, the complaint should be dismissed.”
Given that the complainants are not lawyers and we did not have any provided to us like the Premier, we failed to recognize the importance of this argument and as such did not make any response to it. Frankly, I don’t really understand the value of clause 106(1)(a)(ii). If it existed in the Criminal Code, criminals who can demonstrate that they didn’t mean to commit the crime -- that is, they were distracted or they didn’t mean it -- would be, like, go. To me, it’s an odd clause. It’s a bit of an odd escape clause that was put in place by former Legislatures and, quite frankly, I don’t understand it. But, regardless, in the end, the adjudicator has based his decision on the evidence and the arguments presented to him. I believe he came to the right conclusion and his decisions are the right ones based on the evidence and the arguments provided. In the absence of any counterarguments or reasons outlining why 106(1)(a)(ii) should not apply, the adjudicator had no other choice but to accept it and dismiss this complaint. Therefore, as mentioned earlier, I will be supporting this motion.
However, before I sit down, I would like to once again send a message that I have sent previously. I would like to encourage the Premier of the Northwest Territories to do the honourable thing and take responsibility for the damage that his failure to arrange his private affairs in such a manner that maintained public confidence in his integrity, objectivity and impartiality has caused. This can be done by way of a sincere and general apology that acknowledges his actions or if the Premier is unwilling to provide that sincere and genuine apology, he could always resign in the best interests of the Legislature and the people of the Northwest Territories and to those people who took second place. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.