If there are limited dollars what are we going to do about it? That is all we are trying to say here. When I look at four boardrooms in one office building for the Department of Health, when I go into some of these offices and see what people have, the rain is not coming through the roof, the heat is on and the carpet gets cleaned and the garbage gets picked up. So I think we have to get down to basics here. It is almost like a revolving door. Every time you turn around somebody is moving from one office to another to another. Renovations going all over the place.
I think Mrs. Marie-Jewell has a point here. We have to give ourselves a shake here. People are doing not bad from what I see. They also have a reasonable salary, not a bad lifestyle, running water, flush toilets. So are these kinds of expenditures really necessary when we have more critical things to address? I think we have to get that message through to people that maybe you have to put up with a little less. We are saying it to everybody else out there. You are saying it to the regions, you are saying it to councils. Why not say it to the civil service.
In the overall pitch of things, it is not a significant dollar issue, but in terms of perception it is important. Public perception should be that we all must take our share of pain, if that is what we all want to do, until good times come, and I understand they are going to be rolling in soon, according to Mr. Pollard anyway. But I think that is what we are trying to say, Mr. Chairman.