Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, in the Minister's opening comments he made the observation that the Standing Committee on Governance and Economic Development has made the observation that there has been significant growth in FMBS funding responsibilities in human resources over the past few years.
Mr. Chairman, the one word that is missing there is "influence". In my five-and-a-half years in this Assembly it seems to me that FMBS has become the single most influential government -- it is not even a department - but it has become the most influential unit in government. It is the gatekeeper, it seems, to just about all government activity.
While I recognize the need for probity and accountability in counting the money, my concern is in fact that they have significant influence as well in a lot of program areas. While I as well appreciate the hard work of the FMBS and Mr. Voytilla's unique and never-ending forecasting requirements and having to balance all those many financial bills and do all that work, I do share the concern and observation by the Standing Committee on Governance and Economic Development.
It is not necessarily a money issue, but it is just a concern - and this was a concern when I worked for the government as well - that personnel, finance and government services went from service organizations to control organizations. I do not know if it is part of this cyclical revolutionary development of bureaucracies, but it is something that I want to state for the record as part of this process today.
The Minister has laid out the many projects that the FMBS has worked on. Some of them seem like RWED processes, some of them seem that they could be in other departments. However, that is not what has happened. I must acknowledge as well that my recollection is that every Minister of FMBS has been very influential because where the money is, is where the decisions tend to be made.
The Ministers that I have had involvement with have all been hard-charging individuals and I must give them credit for their initiative. However, the corporate structure they have built up around them has had a significant and lasting influence long beyond the time of the particular Ministers. So my concern is that. I am watching with interest to see because things like the Human Resource Development Strategy, for example, I am hoping will be separate from FMBS, so FMBS can concentrate on running PeopleSoft and keeping the books balanced and not get involved with necessarily a lot of these other program areas. A lot of these program areas are not necessarily financial and the people at FMBS tend to be financial people. That is my concern. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.