Thank you, Mr. Handley. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I would appreciate that information as soon as possible. My next question. The Minister has indicated that he had released information to the committee in confidence. When he decided to do that, was he aware of his obligations under the separation agreements with these parties, the confidentiality portion of that contract?

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Handley.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, I am very aware of what the terms are in that separation agreement. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Ms. Lee.

Thank you. So if he was aware of those provisions, and he is also aware and he has stated that it was probably likely that those provisions were subject to the privacy act and required third party notice, did he give notice to those third parties when he decided to release the information to the committee?

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, my interpretation of that clause is in reference to releasing that information publicly. In sharing it with the standing committee on a confidential basis, we are only conducting good government business. The standing committee needs that information in order to understand the supp request, so I am not of the view that there was any violation there. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the need for legislators to have information when it is necessary, but I also understand from listening to the Minister that this government and he as the Minister responsible for the public service is a party to a contract, and he had agreed to certain provisions. While I am not imputing any motive or any wrong-doing on the part of the Minister, the fact is that the information he released has now gone into the hands of the public. In fact, yesterday Northbeat reported exact amounts, and I want to know if the Minister does not feel that he has actually breached the obligation under that contract as the Minister?

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, I cannot speak to where Northbeat gets their information, but no I am absolutely certain that I have not breached any provision in that agreement. We have, Mr. Chairman, provided similar information on other individuals who had very similar, if not the same, confidentiality agreements when they were separated from the government. What we provided to the standing committee is not at all unusual and it is not a violation of the confidentiality agreement, in my view. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I am privy to exactly the same information that all the other Members get and the information we were given entailed quite a lot of detail of the contract. As the Minister responsible for the public service and Member of this government in Cabinet, is he not concerned that senior officials in the government may have lost confidence in him as Minister responsible for the public service in that details of any agreements that they sign, and it could be Mr. Voytilla or Ms. Snider sitting right next to him, that if they engage in separation agreements all that information may become public?

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, as I said, in order to conduct our business in our consensus form of government I have to share, on a confidential basis, a lot of information with the committees and that is typically information that committees would never see in a party system, but in our form of government that has to be shared in order to have good open government. I have no concern at all that because I am sharing information confidentially with the standing committee that the public service or someone is going to lose confidence in me. I have absolutely no concern about that at all. I do not make it public when I do that, and I suppose if other individuals start to make it public there may be a loss of confidence but I trust that everybody will respect that confidentiality. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that it was not the Minister who provided the information to the public, but the fact is that he is well aware that there are a lot of people in that room. When he provides the information to the Members' offices it goes through the hands of many staff. I understand that we need that information. I am not saying that we do not need that information. As the Minister responsible for the public service who entered into a termination contract that deals with very sensitive issues such as termination and severance and he played a part in making that information available to the public, is that not grounds for people and senior officials of the government to lose confidence in the Minister?

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, we gave that information to the committee in confidence. In fact, they wrote a separate letter reinforcing that. Mr. Chairman, I trust and have confidence in my staff that they are going to respect that and I expect that the standing committee does the same with their staff. Either we are going to have to start dealing with all this stuff in camera and do all the work ourselves from the smallest administrative detail or else we are going to have to trust our staff. I trust my staff. I give it to the committee, I trust the committee. I trust their staff. I do not think there is any breach of any confidentiality there whatsoever. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have spent some time now probing a number of aspects of the special warrant. Something that I place a high priority on in our decision making and the steps that we take is to try to ensure that in contentious areas or issues that we have done our very best as people in the Legislative Assembly and as staff to follow due process and to use whatever tools we already have established as policy, precedence or good practice and apply those to our decision making. This is the area that I especially followed questions of my colleagues and the answers on, and it is very useful this afternoon to have Ms. Snider here as perhaps the key official in terms of managing this kind of process.

A number of the questions I had have already been addressed, but there is one that I would like to ask the Minister, and this is with regard to the manner in which the recommendations - we have heard there were recommendations that Ms. Snider made to the Premier in his capacity as Minister responsible for the public service. The question I would like to ask is, did the Premier accept fully, completely and without change the recommendations made by Ms. Snider on the termination agreements?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Ms. Snider.