Mr. Chairman, maybe I will turn that over to Ms. Snider first, since she is the one who was involved in this directly. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Ms. Snider.

Thank you, Ms. Snider. The Chair recognizes Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I also have a question following up from Friday's discussion. On page 1137 of unedited Hansard, Minister Handley says that the chief of staff position was done away with, terminated. So this was a termination because the job no longer existed.

I am just wondering if we can get a bit of an outline of the time table. I was not aware before he said this that Cabinet had approved the elimination of the position before the resignation. Is that in fact what had happened? What was the time table?

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, it was on October 29th that the decision was made to eliminate the chief of staff position. On November 1st, it was announced that the incumbent was resigning. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will not say anything more on that, but I would point out that the chief of staff position is still on the staff phone list that came out today. If in fact the position has been eliminated, we should update the phone list.

On page 1136 of unedited Hansard from Friday, Minister Handley said, "There was an amount negotiated because of the particular circumstances, in order to avoid legal liability." We have heard from Mr. Voytilla that negotiating some extra amounts are quite normal. Ms. Snider has said that in the course of negotiating the two contracts, that she did consult with labour relations. I would like to ask the Minister about the expertise that is contained within labour relations. Do we have people who are well-versed in current labour law in Canada and who follow the current state of the art, as it were, in labour law?

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, I think Mr. Voytilla is most familiar with his staff and their expertise, so I will turn it over to him.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Voytilla.

Thank you, Mr. Voytilla. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We know that we have been told that senior, or at pleasure, employees' contracts typically have termination benefits stipulated in them, whether for cause or without cause or on resignation. There are typically termination provisions. The Minister today has talked about the need for that to get senior staff. I do not disagree, I think that in order to have people who are going to take jobs from which they could be dismissed at a moment's notice, you are going to have to be prepared to compensate them. I think that is fairly standard in our Canadian situation. I think that it is fairly standard in government service when you have senior positions.

We know that the termination contract probably said that if a person resigned and gave notice that they would be given their monthly salary multiplied by their completed years of service up to a maximum of 12 months. So they would qualify if they resigned for a maximum payment of 12 months salary.

If they were terminated without cause, they would get a payment of somewhere between 12 to 24 months. So we have the formula. The formula is clearly set out. We were told by the Premier that this was consistent with senior, at pleasure employee contracts.

I am a little concerned though that we may have been setting a bit of a precedent if in fact, as Mr. Handley said on Friday, there was an amount negotiated because of particular circumstances in order to avoid legal liability. Perhaps we are not as aware as we should be of the current state of Canadian labour law. The ruling that I tabled earlier today involved a similar situation in which an employee did have a termination clause set out in the contract which allowed for the employer to terminate, wrongfully or rightfully, for any reason at all and the courts found that particularly in positions where there was little job security, much like these two, where they are political appointments that the amount was set out in the contract was exactly the amount that should be paid.

As the judge said, as Canadian law presently stands there is no implied contractual term that an employee will not be dismissed in a bad faith manner. The judge, on appeal at the Supreme Court, found that what the contract itself said in a bad faith dismissal was the amount that had to be paid. There was no reason for any extra payment. Although the lower courts had found in favour of the employee and awarded damages, on appeal it was reversed.

When people go into these things, when they negotiate in good faith and I would typically say that someone going into a senior government position, whether it is a deputy minister position or whatever else, they are typically fairly experienced in the work world. I would expect that they would understand that the day could come that a change in political will might be the end of their jobs. They would be responsible for negotiating in their contracts what the terms of their dismissal would look like. That is exactly what the courts have been finding.

I just find it difficult to understand how we would have had to, in these contracts, negotiate anything extra in order to avoid the legal liability. We had it set out in the contract. Why did we not just say, "Well, if you are going to sue us we will see you in court, because here is what it says."

I do not disagree, by the way, that there may have been reason for payment. I am just saying that the payment may not have been calculated right if there was an extra amount negotiated. I think that we may be setting a precedent here which I have some trouble with. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, we are familiar with the case that the Member is referring to. It is a case that is somewhat different than the situations that we are talking about here. I suppose the first thing that you would want to look at would be how far you would want to push these kinds of things. I am not sure what the Supreme Court of Prince Edward Island, which this one is from, not the Supreme Court of Canada, what that would have cost the employer before this thing was finally settled.

So in any situation where letting a senior staff at pleasure appointee go without cause then it has the potential of costing a tremendous pile of money. This one may have cost a lot of money to get this particular ruling from that provincial Supreme Court. Those are always judgment decisions, which have to be made on which is the most expedient? Which is the most cost effective way of arriving at a settlement? Do we really want to go to court on all of these and what is it going to cost us if we do that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. The Chair recognizes Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. An interesting line of questioning and the discussion of precedent being established and we know that when a court makes a ruling everybody uses that ruling, especially when it is in their favour to affect decisions being made.

One of the concerns, Mr. Chairman, is in the process of where we find ourselves today, in this particular area of a special warrant for the amount identified. I guess I would like to know what process is used when terminating employees of this government, especially those at pleasure?

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Who would then sign off on that?

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Handley.