Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am glad to be able to speak to this. I was part of the resource management committee several years ago which looked at and reviewed the amalgamation of these three departments. We spent a considerable amount of time and effort to look at this particular amalgamation. I believe there can always be improvements no matter where we look. We always have the ability to find a new way of doing things.
But I believe the department is doing the job that it was set out and structured to do. I believe it saved a lot of money, and that was one of the primary reasons for doing it at the time. We were under a tremendous crunch to start looking at cutting costs. We did that with a number of departments. It was not just Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development that was a part of that. Health and Social Services was done in the same fashion.
If that is the case, I appreciate what the Members are saying. Maybe it would be good to have an audit. But you have to remember that this is not done by people walking into your operation and no one is affected by it. Everybody is affected by that. We will have staff disrupted for long periods of time.
Those of us who have been in business, if you are ever audited by a federal auditor, you know darn well what kind of pressure it puts on you. It consumes a lot of people.
If you are just dealing with financial matters, it takes hours, days, even weeks to do a little business. I know, for I have been through it. So do not tell me that this is not going to cost the department or this government anything. It does. It consumes people's time, efforts, stress, et cetera.
If there was something wrong, fine. But I do not see a lot wrong. I can honestly say we can probably make improvements here and there. There is no doubt about that. But I feel the timing of this motion is premature. We have some developments happening here in the Territories, the diamond mine situation, oil and gas development, tourism, and other areas we want to concentrate on. Those are the issues that should be our priority.
I think there is an opportunity to make suggestions. We have a business plan process which Members can go through with their committee to review the financial situation of the department and review what is being spent. They have the opportunity to ask questions. We just went through an interim budget. You had a chance to really look at things. I am not sure it is all that profitable to go through this process, just so we can say thank you very much at the end of the day. To me, it is not worth it at this time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
-- Applause