Mr. Chairman, when we negotiate agreements with the unions, the union takes account of who it is that there membership is, and that is what decides what type of benefits they seek.

There is an increasing number, a high number, of northern, and aboriginal, people now present in the work-force, they are members of the unions, and we have served notice that we expect the type of resources, the type of money that we put into benefits for employees, into collective agreements, to start changing.

For instance, removal benefits, how you can use vacation travel assistance, housing, these are a few of the items we think will start to change dramatically. For instance, terms that would cover the kind of removal costs and assurances that southern hires want, are going to largely disappear if we hire mostly from the north. Any resources that are presently allocated for that can be re-allocated by the unions for others, and that was one of the offers we made this year. If there are areas where money was allocated in previous years, that the union feel is not a priority for the membership, they are quite free, within the total allocation that they felt they had available to them, to ask to re-allocate it. I think the trend is that way, as the Members suggest, to make sure that the type of money we provide to Members through collective agreements, as benefits to government employees, that it is negotiated, and taken into account that a larger percentage of the work-force are going to be aboriginal northern people.

Mr. Chairman, could I ask for witnesses to come in, so that we can have some real experts in Personnel.