Mr. Chairman, was that $924 million?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My other question is in regard to community empowerment initiatives across departments which is listed here, coordination of these community empowerment initiatives. I had some correspondence across my desk in the last little while where one of my communities was questioning why departments are moving away from transfer agreements even though they have been signed and agreed to and switching over to MOUs? Could I get some information as to why this is taking place?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Is the department aware at all as to why DPW wanted to go with a MOU rather than a transfer agreement they had already signed?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In regard to the community initiatives of community empowerment or taking over responsibilities from this government, it is a good initiative. At the end of the day, there always seems to be a lack of resources in the communities which before, if the government had the responsibility, they would have monies available for housing for staff and to ensure the person is highly qualified. Basically, there was certain benefits that came along with those positions. Also, they would have the resources to ensure they would have O and M funds available. They would have capital dollars available, so they could purchase equipment to carry out their functions. In regard to communities, one thing that seems to really be lacking is when they take on these responsibilities, a lot of these add ons are taken away from these community initiatives where the individuals or the community has a portion of a salary for a person's position. A lot of times the individuals have to find alternative office space or basically the community has to subsidize these individuals when they go to work. A lot of these positions are part-time. Before, when the government had it, these were full-time positions. When you talk about the whole area of monitoring and evaluation of community initiatives, do you also allow the opportunity of the communities to identify the faults of these initiatives they have taken on? Such as, not having the adequate funding or not having the adequate training for the individuals who have put themselves in those positions.

One of the concerns I have is that in regard to negotiating claims agreements where we also negotiated implementation agreements which identified the resources that were going to be used to ensure that these dollars were there so that when the boards were up and running the different functions that they had were all spelled out in black and white. You knew exactly how much money was going to be there for the rent, for the phone, for the individual's position, the benefits and everything. In these cases it seemed like you just take on the responsibility with one function which is basically the human resource side, but you do not look at the delivery side also in regard to having to process the applications or ensure that there is adequate training there. You are making sure that you have the money in your funds for benefits such as pension funds, CPP, UIC or all these other functions which add up to the different organizations that take these things on. When you do your evaluations, do you look at all these other functions that come along and do the communities have the ability to go back and renegotiate, identify those problem areas and increase the funds in those different sectors?

When you look at the areas of liabilities in regard to the individuals responsibility that they take on different initiatives, there may also be certain liabilities which are attached to these positions. In regard to an individual who was in a position of trust, where whatever they say to someone tells you something and they breach that trust, that person is held liable. Is the community also protected in such an instance of being slandered by the same or it might be the employee. Not having the adequate insurance or liability insurance to ensure that there is some mechanism that protects, not only the community governments, but also the person who takes on these positions knowing there are obligations they have to fulfil. There is also the question of the trust where you have to swear the question about confidentiality. That is something that also has to be inherent in these transfers. Is there any insurance in place to protect the communities against a lawsuit or whatever because of an action of one of their employees, who have taken on one of these community initiatives in which they find themselves in a lawsuit.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The other area of concern that I have is that a lot of these positions are underfunded. A lot of these positions are held by women, especially the whole issue of pay equity where we have presently found ourselves in court. I think that it also has to be taken into account that when you look at these positions in the community and because they are female employees they are not paid to the extent of someone doing the same job in a larger setting. If it was a position held by a government employee versus a community employee there is some inadequacy because of the different benefits derived from these different positions, yet they are doing the same job. That has to be looked at when you look at the resources that communities are being allocated. The people are hired based on the amounts they are given to do these jobs. The resources they are given are a lot less than say if the person was a government employee, where there would be a real wage difference. The government takes that into account when these positions are being filled with ensuring that the adequate resources are there in light of the pay equity court case.