Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I've had some time to think about that motion and, you know, and what transpired and, you know, I'm in favour of it. And you know, we do have laws. We have the Code of Conduct. And we have to follow those. That's -- you know, that's basically the rule of law and in this instance the Member, I guess, failed to do that according to the Integrity Commissioner. There was a process. If there is a process, if one wanted to, in this case to be deemed essential, and -- which is a fairly easy process. And to give you an example, myself, I stayed in Hay River during the fire. And, but I made sure that the town put me on their list of essential people. And I think that's important that you do that. It was -- it was easy to do. And, so that's kind of one point. The other point is when should a -- you know, when should a Member be deemed essential for something like this? And I think that's something we have to look at. And hopefully the next Assembly will do it because it's government money that's getting spent. There's -- there should be some interaction, I guess, or something there, representation or connection, you know, with somebody whether, it's a politician or whatever. Like, Hay River, just to give you another example, Hay River, we lost communication. So we didn't really have any communication with the outside except if you were by Starlink. So the point I want to get -- make is that we, as an Assembly, need to look at is at what point is an MLA deemed to be essential and under what criteria would that be. In this instance, there was an easy way for the Member to solve that was just ask the city to be put on the list, and the city said no. Simple. Then you don't stay in town, in the city. You go. And in this case, it didn't happen, so. And the other thing is there probably was some confusion, but Integrity Commissioner made his report. He made his recommendation. And I will follow that recommendation. Thank you.
Rocky Simpson on Motion 86-19(2): Report of Integrity Commissioner into Complaint of Code of Conduct, Carried
In the Legislative Assembly on October 6th, 2023. See this statement in context.
Motion 86-19(2): Report of Integrity Commissioner into Complaint of Code of Conduct, Carried
Motions
October 6th, 2023
Page 6900
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