Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is a regrettable day in our Assembly that we need to be talking about a matter such as this.

Mr. Speaker, the Premier’s conduct I believe has put all Members of this Assembly in a very untenable situation. We’ve had to ask ourselves do something or do nothing, and that’s a question that I have had to ask myself many times during this process. Is this something that I can say and do nothing about?

I guess I have been in this Legislative Assembly for 14 years. I have devoted quite a large chunk of my working and adult life to this institution and it does bereave greatly when we have to deal with situations such as that before us today. I respect this institution and I think we all have an obligation, every one of us elected to this office, to try and up hold a standard that the people can feel is acceptable and we feel is acceptable amongst ourselves.

Mr. Speaker, I have to ask these questions and I don’t want to rehash what happened in the inquiry, but from me signing the letter came down to a question like this: Should the standing committees in our Legislature and the work they conduct have a reasonable expectation that they can work and speak freely without the partner of the person who is the head of our government being in the room? Should Members in the performance of their duties

in this House also reasonably expect that when they rise on a point of privilege or a point of order in this House, that the table officers who serve us should be free of any bias or perceived bias in assisting the Speaker in crafting responses to those points that are raised and very serious to Members in the performance of their duties?

Mr. Speaker, I am conflicted today because although I will accept the findings of the report, there are parts of it that I have a really difficult time with. Mr. Speaker, other Members have spoken to the integrity and the vast experience of Mr. Justice Hughes and Mr. Gerald Gerrand, and indeed they are highly respected, but I think that the findings of the report that the adjudicator did not have the opportunity to rule outside of the options and arguments that were available to him. In other words, he had to take the evidence before him and rule on that. He did not have the opportunity to bring his own opinion or anything. He could not pull something out of the air that was not presented.

As other Members have already alluded to, Mr. Speaker, the legislation has changed. It used to be that when a complaint was filed, that the Conflict Commissioner would then rule on that prima facie complaint to determine if further investigation was required and there was, that same Conflict Commissioner would then become the judge and the adjudicator of that complaint.

We, for various reasons that we won’t revisit, decided that that process was not the best and that it was possible to refer this to a sole adjudicator. Mr. Speaker, in the changing of that legislation, it was determined that it not be in the government’s rules or policy that the folks that were making the complaint or the person laying the complaint would be funded for any counsel. As we all know, counsel is very expensive and it would be difficult for Members to finance out of their own resources.

Mr. Speaker, none of the Members on this side of the House are lawyers, so we tried to the best of our ability, and I do thank those who were here for every day of the inquiry and worked really hard on this to participate in a process that was, in fact, not an inquisitorial process but an adversarial process. In fact, did not have the kind of guidance that would have perhaps made the kind that perhaps would have made the finding of this inquiry, may have had a different outcome, but we can only speculate.

Mr. Speaker, when all of the facts of this inquiry are boiled down, what do we have left? Mr. Speaker, we are the police of our own conduct in this Legislative Assembly. Was Mr. Roland fair to the Members in his dealings with us in this manner? Was his a standard of conduct that we can be confident in and proud of?

Mr. Speaker, I must say that in the finding of an error in judgment as a layperson and not a lawyer, an error in judgment speaks to me of something

inadvertent and perhaps kind of something spontaneous and on the spur of the moment and not something that would go on for an extended period of time like weeks or months.

The other part of that error in judgment made in good faith, I actually took it upon myself to look up what “good faith” meant and I actually looked it up in the dictionary and it means with honest intentions, an error in judgment, an inadvertent decision made with honest intentions.

It was indicated that because of the Premier’s busy schedule that he didn’t have time to consider the Members of this House and he wanted to make sure that the relationship was permanent. As the report indicates, he had opportunity at several junctures to share this relationship even in a discreet manner with those who were in positions of authority, such as the Speaker or the Clerk. Mr. Speaker, we did not expect that the Premier needed to take out an advertisement on the front page of the newspaper to say that this relationship had developed, but there were ways of discreetly and sensitively dealing with this, but the Premier did not take advantage of that.

Mr. Speaker, some of the other Members have made comments that I would like to respond to, but I am just going to stick to the report. I have to say, though, that this is not a spy drama. You know, as a matter of fact, there was no spying. We didn’t even know the Premier was in a relationship with the Clerk until it was disclosed to us and we found out. It never crossed our minds. We never thought of it.

So, Mr. Speaker, I guess it’s important that all Members who are elected to this level of public office consider what would be a normal and acceptable standard of conduct.

Mr. Speaker, I will say today that I sincerely regret the day that I supported Premier Floyd Roland in his bid for Premier and my heart has gone out of this job to some extent. It may never come back. Because I was proud to be a Member of this…I find it hard to come in here. Sorry.

I have been spending some time in my office this week because I like to be passionate about my job, I like to be enthusiastic about it. I cannot come in here anymore with that same enthusiasm because of what we have allowed to happen. I’m sorry. I only have two years to go and I will not run again. I am sad to say that my heart is not here anymore because of this.