Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The comments from the Standing Committee on Finance are basically going to be rather brief, we are going to move right into resolutions fairly quickly. The Committee, as already has been stated, remains concerned about the insufficient numbers of northerners, and affirmative action candidates, in the public service. I think that this has been talked about earlier on, when we were making our general comments about the budget.

To repeat it again, it must become the exception to look south to hire people, rather than the norm. We have to get more northerners to work. One other comment that I would like to make, arises from the Minister's opening statement, in which the Minister mentioned that, "We cannot continue to do business with moving companies as we know do, with rates 35 percent higher than federal rates." The concern stems from the fact that, I do not believe the negotiations yet, that this one month delay was intended to provide.

I am surprised that the Minister would make that kind of comment before those negotiations, especially since this government is on record with the Business Incentive Policy of recognizing the higher cost of doing business in the north. I think that we have to recognize that, since it does cost more to do business in the north, we are going to have to expect to pay a little bit more.

For instance, moving tariffs in the Yukon are 40 percent higher than the federal rate. Moving tariffs in B.C. are 17 to 25 percent higher than the federal rate. Moving tariffs in Alberta are 10 percent higher than the federal rate. Now, if you add a local B.I.P. of 20 percent to any of those, obviously we are going to be considerably higher, probably close to the 35 percent that the Minister stated. I hope that the Minister has not prejudged the process, and will allow negotiations to take place.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to move right into the resolutions, from the Standing Committee on Finance. Our first motion has to do with the Human Resource Management System. The last Legislative Assembly approved a motion to establish, as an objective, the development of a government-wide human resource management system, complementary to the Management for Results System, and it is to be implemented as soon as possible.