Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Premier in his last response, said that he immediately took action to inform the Members of what happened. Yes, he could have buried this and tried to hide it. I don’t think that would have done any good. This is a small town. It’s a small territory. I do commend the Premier and I did tell him after I received the letter, I did commend him for taking the action that he did and not ignoring the situation. However, I still fail to see why he is putting himself and his government and his Cabinet under this kind of pressure to say one more chance. Could...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like the Premier to spell out for me what “we’ll deal with it “means. What will he do?

Mr. Speaker, maybe the Premier could share with us his understanding of a Cabinet Minister’s responsibility as to when they are on duty, and when are they representing this government and the views of this government. Is this just during working hours, or what obligations does a Cabinet Minister have in terms of the things that come out of their mouths and the actions that they take in public? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, without the exact wording, would the Premier share with the House what were the nature of the comments that Mr. Zoe made? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I will ask a question of the Premier. Is the Premier willing to take responsibility for the conduct of his Cabinet Ministers and remove Mr. Zoe’s portfolios from him in response to this incident which took place, which is very well known in the public? Will the Premier take action?

Thank you. I will ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to escort the Minister’s witnesses in.

Mr. Minister, for the record, would you introduce your witnesses, please?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So what I was hearing earlier today was that this sounds like it was an isolated incident, and Mr. Speaker, I don’t believe this is an isolated incident. I think that this is something that there has been a series of incidents around, and if the Premier, Mr. Speaker, has already warned Mr. Zoe about this, I am not quite sure I understand what the purposes of the "if it ever happens again." What is the purpose of that? Why are we waiting for another incident before we do something? It’s within the Premier’s purview to do something about this. Why isn’t he doing...

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. I would like to ask the Minister if he has witnesses he would like to bring into the Chamber.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I said in my Member’s statement, it’s a pleasure to have the Grade 6 students from Hay River in the gallery today. I would like to name them if they could just quickly jump up so we can see you. First of all, before we do that, Ginny Groenheyde, one of their teachers and Bob White is one of the teachers. Also from the PA school, Carolyn Carroll and I would also like to recognize my assistant Wendy Morgan who put a lot of work into this. Now for the students: Keisha Kipling, Jaeda Larocque, Ben Corneau, Allee Geade, Madison Sabel, Tanya Maher, Irene...

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The motion is in order. It’s not debatable. All those in favour of the motion? The motion is carried. I will now rise and report progress.