Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker, for that opportunity.

I was one of the people who sat on the rules and procedures committee in the last Legislative Assembly. And to put it into some context, not only had we an unprecedented number at that time of new MLAs, we were also in the thick of the #metoo movement, and with that in mind, we decided to work on changes to the code of conduct that would make it more stringent than it had been in the past, and with the support of our Members at the time in the Legislative Assembly, that code of conduct and its commentary was passed.

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that it would apply to a situation such as the one that we are discussing today where the behaviour of the Member is wholly unacceptable and for which the Member is taking no responsibility. This is a very different situation than we anticipated in crafting that code of conduct.

Just to reiterate a few things that I've heard before but I think they're important, this problem began a year ago. It began in this room in a confidential meeting, and it has persisted through an entire year in different forms and always with the same outcome, that the Member or soon-to-be-former Member of Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh was dissatisfied with the result, did not feel his concerns had been heard, and felt that he was being treated in a racist manner.

I want to say that I appreciate Rylund Johnson going forward with the complaint on behalf of Caucus which started the -- first with the complaint to the Integrity Commissioner and then to the sole adjudicator.

I want to reject the commentary that the sole adjudicator was somehow not suitable to conduct the public hearing that we saw in October and November. He was a ten-year Conflict of Interest Commissioner in Saskatchewan and has a 50-year practice of law in many different capacities. There's no question in my mind that he had the expertise we needed to conduct the hearing and to come out with a result.

As he said in his own report, it wasn't an overly complicated two questions that he was asked to rule on. The first was whether the Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh had broken his isolation, and what we know through the testimony is that, in fact, that happened five times; it wasn't just a one-off. It happened five times, and it was not inadvertent or minor. He did this knowingly and subjected people to the risk of COVID-19 infection knowingly, which is reprehensible.

Secondly, the sole adjudicator was asked to rule on the question of whether the MLA for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh had misled the public. And the short answer is yes. In many ways, shapes, and forms, he did not, in fact, tell the truth. He did not own his behaviour. And consistently throughout, he behaved as if there was a different law for himself than there was for everyone else.

I want to point you to a moment in the hearing where the Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh said to the deputy clerk that he had a political exemption that would allow him to be in the Legislative Assembly while he was in isolation.

What that demonstrated to me is that he thought he was above the law, the law that requires us to self-isolate during the pandemic. And in fact, nobody is above the law. There is no political exemption. The law is one in the same for everyone wherever they live in the NWT. Whatever their race, origin, hair color, it's the same rule for everyone.

So what we know is that he broke isolation and he lied about it, that he subjected hundreds of people to risk, even though it was a low-level risk, it was still a risk, with his cavalier attitude and we could have had a great number more cases in the third wave than we had. The third wave was particularly acute here in Yellowknife with the NJ Macpherson outbreak. But we could have had even a worse time than we did there.

Mr. Norn's rationale for misleading the public was exhaustion and stress. And the sole adjudicator, at paragraph 256, rejected that saying that he did not accept Mr. Norn's explanation and did not believe him in his reasons for not -- for misleading the public.

As other colleagues have said, the public expects a great deal from us in this Legislative Assembly. We've been elected, and as my colleague from Yellowknife South said, given the privilege and the honor of representing our constituents here. And they want us not only to acknowledge that we're above the law but to act in that way, that we are -- pardon me -- that we are not above the law, and they want us to act in a way that shows that we are not above the law. And because of the MLA for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh's conduct, he actually brought us all into disrepute, and he brought this House into disrepute because he did not behave in a way that inspires confidence and trust from the public.

I want to thank all of my constituents who contacted me on this matter. It was quite a robust response. And I want to say that with one exception, the advice I received was that having gone through the process of the sole adjudicator, spent the money on the sole adjudicator, and dragged ourselves through the whole ordeal, that we needed to follow the advice of the sole adjudicator, and I totally agree with that. I think that having asked for this advice and received it, there is no way forward except to follow it and to acknowledge that vacating the seat given the level of betrayal he displayed in losing the trust and the confidence of us as his colleagues and the public that the right thing to do is to declare the seat vacant, and I will certainly be voting in favour of that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.