Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as you know, I recently questioned our government about personnel policies for excluded employees. I was expressing concern that excluded and management employees of the Northwest Territories public service have little protection regarding employment-related issues.

The Minister responsible for the public service has, to his credit, responded to me very quickly. I will be tabling that letter later today. He did point out that there is a degree of protection provided in several acts and policies that we have; the Public Service Act, the Canadian Human Rights Act, the Northwest Territories Fair Practices Act, the Workplace Conflict Resolution Policy, Code of Conduct, Job Evaluation Policy and the human resource manual.

Mr. Speaker, the purpose of my statement today is not to quibble with the Minister over the relative strengths or shortcomings of these acts and policies. I do want to point out though, Mr. Speaker, that I was surprised to learn that although the Public Service Act enables the Minister for the public service or his delegates, typically deputy ministers or CEOs of boards, to appoint and terminate public service employees, it does not specifically prohibit Ministers from involving themselves in staffing actions.

Mr. Speaker, this clearly is not appropriate and I think it is something we need to address in our legislation or policies. Mr. Speaker, I simply think we owe it to our public service to tackle these very important issues and let them know how highly we value them. Thank you.

-- Applause