Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Let me just get back to the basics here. As I sit here, I can’t help but notice we are engaged in a very well-known dance, a dance that happens in families when you have a family member in trouble. Somebody does something wrong and they say I am sorry, I won’t do it again. I don’t think that should be enough. I think we have to, as a body responsible for public interest and public integrity and the high standard that we must uphold, the Premier has to have that X-factor, that information that tells him that goes beyond I am sorry, I won’t do it again. So I need to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Premier also. As I was listening to the questions and answer to the statement made by Mr. Zoe, I think the Premier is getting very close to giving misleading information if it’s not inaccurate.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think that the Premier’s statement is very, very problematic. This is not a family of 17 brothers and two sisters. I understand there is a personal matter and a personal suffering here, but this assembly is a public body. We are talking about actions that were taken by a public person in a public forum in a very public event. North of 60 Idol had at least 200 people present and the Premier is not Mr. Zoe’s father, brother or uncle. He is the leader of this government. He is my leader. I wish Mr. Zoe wouldn’t be smiling. I am sorry; what’s going on here? It matters...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t believe the Premier has answered the question, and that is doing his part to not just do the letters. How many letters can you write? Does he not think, based on the information that he has, that what happened is not important enough for him to take more action than writing letters? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to add that I have a lot of respect for Mr. Zoe, as I have for Members in this House. I do believe he is a very capable Minister. I believe the issue here is something quite different, and I believe the issue has to do with leadership. I would rather like to see a situation where Mr. Zoe maintains his duties in Cabinet, but I need to be assured that there are decisions made by decision makers with the power to make sure that it doesn’t happen again, and the statement today does not tell me, and does not give me the confidence that we have taken the steps...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There is a very positive aspect to this. I do believe we released a statement yesterday talking about self-relying individuals and working towards wellness. I do not think anybody could disagree that active seniors are healthy seniors who have less need and make less use of the health care system. By engaging people as soon as they become seniors -- 55 plus for the purpose of the games -- the society hopes to get them active both physically and mentally and keep them active for the rest of their lives. In 2002, the oldest participant at the games was 92 years old....

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For the life of me, I don’t understand when every Member in this House knows as much as we do about what we are dealing with here, we just relieve ourselves of all our responsibilities as Premier. I don’t think we are doing anybody any favours here. We are not serving the public, we are not serving Mr. Zoe, we are not serving the Cabinet. It’s just kind of denying that there is that serious problem here and we could just deal with it by hoping that it won’t happen again. Mr. Speaker, could I ask the Premier’s commitment for him to speak to Mr. Zoe again? I don’t...

Mr. Speaker, I apologize and I would like to retract that statement. What I wanted to say is I have information from being what is being said here and what I have heard and gotten notes from the Premier, it indicates two different things. The Premier just indicated in his answers to Mrs. Groenewegen that he is confident that Mr. Zoe is seeking help. I believe that is true on the information I have. I am not saying Mr. Zoe is…The information I have from what the Premier has said to me in private, what Mr. Zoe had to say in private, that is not true. I would like to know from the Premier...

Mr. Speaker, the Premier should be totally ashamed of that answer. Mr. Speaker, we know the Premier of Alberta had to make a public apology and say he was seeking treatment when there was a problem like this. If this happened to any other Minister in any other government, that Minister would be at least suspended if not gone. If this happened to any other senior officials in this government and they said and did what Mr. Zoe did, that person would not have a job right now. I would certainly hope that. For the Premier to say this is a personal matter, why is it so difficult for him to say I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Premier and it’s with regard to the statement made by Mr. Zoe. I have been listening to the answers being provided by the Premier and the questions being posed. I am a little confused about where we are here.

First of all, it’s highly regrettable that we have to spend this sort of time and energy addressing something that could have been dealt with in a more responsible manner by the Member in question. I just want to put that out there. The second thing is, for me, the whole discussion came about because of the fact that Mr. Zoe...