Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I said, there is an industry norm that we work with. If we are going to hire senior management people who have to, in order to take a job with us, put their previous career on hold and make a commitment to us, then we have to pay a minimum if we were to terminate them for no cause.
In our situation, the norm is a minimum of 12 months for the at pleasure contracts. Even if the person only works for us for a year and a half, and for no cause, is terminated, they are eligible for 12 months. We would not be able to attract people into the senior positions, qualified, experienced people into these positions if we did not have that kind of a minimum. They would not come to us or to any other employer at that level.
In terms of where is this written? In the case of people who are covered by a collective agreement then there is a provision in the collective agreement that clearly outlines the termination provisions. In the case of excluded employees who are not part of the union and are excluded then it would be in the Excluded Employees Handbook. With managers there is also a handbook that spells that out.
In this case, we are dealing with at pleasure contracts. It is an industry norm that we use and I believe it is fairly standard across the country that you would have to provide a minimum of 12 months for anybody to take that kind of job. In our situation, there is a maximum of 24 months that someone would be paid out in the case of no cause. Thank you.