There are two components to what we are doing, Mr. Speaker. There is a retroactivity to pay equity. If we could get an agreement on pay equity which, to put it quite candidly, extremely disappointed that we were not able to move as aggressively as we should have on, so there is the retroactivity from when a nurse started, in 1988, I believe this complaint goes back, to the present day. That is a significant amount of money for the nursing fraternity and others, and then there is the ongoing pay changes that have taken place because we have put into place the Hay Plan Job Evaluation System. I do not know if that explains it or not. What you have is, we are at the collective bargaining right now with the UNW. If they agree with the changes that we have recommended, and the monies we put forward both in the collective agreement and in the adjustment evaluation systems, then the nursing fraternity will get a significant increase somewhere between $9,000 and $13,000, plus some of the additional collective bargaining components that are underway right now. They will not be able to get any retroactive pay on the pay equity side, unless we get an agreement on that.

To date, the UNW has insisted that I decouple it, and so, if some Members of this House, and I, have suggested on a number of occasions that by decoupling it, the reality is, we will not get the agreement for years to come and it will be in the courts. My preference would be that we would move forward on both these initiatives, so we can put new money, more money, in the hands of our employees. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case from my UNW colleagues and union at this time so we are going to deal with the collective agreement and hopefully come to some resolve this week, or next week, get it out to the membership, let them rightly vote yes and no on it. Assuming that they vote yes, which I hope they will, put some money into the hands of our employees before Christmas.