Thank you, Madam Chair. As I have said, the amalgamation created tremendous uncertainty amongst our staff because they were acutely aware, many of them may not have the same job; many of them were acutely aware they may not be able to transfer to a similar job; many of them were aware there was no certainty that they would have a job in the end. We did ask, and I think everybody that was involved made the commitment to work in spite of that outlook. In the end, most of the staff that left took voluntary layoff or were at the end of their terms or retired, so that changeover was not as traumatic as it could have been.
I have taken the approach as a Minister that the staff who are requested by the media to do interviews, provide information. I have instructed that the senior management, the deputy Minister himself and any of his staff can take the liberty of doing media interviews. They are the ones in the front line who are doing the work, who are intimately aware of the issues of interest to the public and that there is some limited liability in doing such a thing.
All of them have done very well in presenting themselves as representatives of this government in dealing with the media, and there has been less coverage for me, more coverage for the individual staff. That has helped morale because I think they feel more ownership and identify more and more with their work. There is, of course, too much work for everyone. We have tried to set out a schedule for the kind of expectation we have had. We have tried to demonstrate that all of us are putting in our time, doing our share and trying to find ways in which to give recognition to the staff who are still out there working away on behalf of the government. We have been trying to do that. There will always be people who by nature work too hard, put too much into their work, people who will suffer from work overload and stress from burning out. The best we can do is provide encouragement and support in trying to alleviate the situation where we can. But it is, in many ways, a difficult time for everyone and on the whole, I would say at least the staff of my department has been performing exceptionally well under the circumstances.