As the Minister mentioned, the system can be down for other human resource functions for two to three days of a cycle. If emergent pay and benefits issues come up, how do we deal with those when the system is down?

Mr. Chairman, we can do what are called off-cycle cheques. If you want detail on exactly what that means, you will have to ask Mr. Voytilla. Thank you.

No, that is fine. I will forgo the detail. However, as Mr. Voytilla has mentioned, we want to get the two to three down days reduced to one. I would assume this will cost us some money to do this. Can the Minister tell us how much money?

Mr. Chairman, we do not expect it should cost anything. We believe it can be achieved through a refinement of our procedures without any additional costs. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe, Mr. Chairman, we expected this thing would cost us $4.3 million and it has cost us $6 million. I do not know how much comfort that is to the people of the Northwest Territories.

Let me ask the Minister again about the cost overruns. We have heard that it is going to come in around $6 million. It was supposed to cost us $4.3 million. We are somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 million in cost overruns in this project. We understand that some portion of this was Nunavut's portion to foot. Can the Minister tell me if we can look at this as something that did not even run over budget?

Mr. Chairman, the original $4.2, $4.3 million figure was an estimate of the cost of implementing it to cover both the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. The $6.4 million we mentioned is, again, the amount to cover both. Of that amount, $2.1 is Nunavut's. So, yes, there are cost overruns. It is a little over $2 million in cost overruns on it. Thank you.

Thank you for the clarification. I missed something there. I thought it was $6 million and in fact it is $6.4 million. It is apparently going to cost us slightly more than what it used to cost to get a bionic arm and two bionic legs, so I would like to make sure that this system is going to be capable of handling all our human resource needs in the North. I am glad to hear the Minister say that we have seen some overruns on this. Can the Minister give us his assurance that this is the end of the overruns?

Mr. Chairman, yes, it is the end of the overruns, unless we want to add additional capability to the system. Mr. Chairman, I might add as well that the PeopleSoft system is the most widely used system across Canada. This is not some bold experiment we are involved in here. We are implementing a system that is pretty common across the country. I am sure everyone else did not get into it because it does not work well. They are in there because it does work well. I am optimistic that we can have the system functioning and running well within a short period of time. Thank you.

Maybe the Minister can tell us if it is common enough that Nunavut is currently using it. They have spent around $2 million. Surely they are currently using the system. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, Nunavut bailed out on this one and no, they are not using the system. Nunavut makes their own decisions. They are using a system out of Ottawa, which I guess someone else convinced them was better than this one. We are not convinced yet. Thank you.

I am glad we are not convinced. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My understanding was that while Nunavut paid $2 million, they found the program too technical and too difficult to run. They did not have the expertise, so they in fact ended up contracting down south. I am not sure if this one is sitting on the shelf somewhere gathering dust.

The concern I have is, of the countless people that have talked about this, I hear a very high level of user dissatisfaction. I was wondering, given the significant, formidable amounts of money that we have invested in a system that our sister territory has already bailed out from, would it not be wise, as part of this kowledge management strategy, to do some sort of user satisfaction survey, to get some hands-on kind of feedback from the people about this system? Thank you.