Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Bell.

The Minister indicated that there is a section that says should the GNWT terminate this position without cause, the GNWT will provide payment in lieu of notice of an amount equal to one month's salary, multiplied by a factor representing the number of years of service in any case that is not less than 12 or more than 24. So the amount paid out, does it represent the number of years of service or is it something over and above that?

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, I cannot confirm that or answer that again without getting the third party's concurrence. I think to do that, again, would be a violation of ATIPP. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I disagree with the Minister's interpretation. I am not talking dollar amounts. I am simply asking, in this specific case, he indicated everything was within the contract. I am asking, did we adhere to multiplying the monthly wage by a number representing the number of years of service? I do not believe we did. I believe we did something over and above that and I am trying to get clarification. I am not talking dollar amounts. If the Minister will not answer it, I will ask the Law Clerk for an interpretation on this matter.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, as I said before, the factors taken into consideration is that clause I referred to, one month per year and so on, and the second piece that is taken into consideration in these kind of circumstances is the need to try to avoid legal liability. I believe Mr. Kakfwi may have something to add to this, Mr. Chairman, if I may.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Kakfwi, did you have some comments to make?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The suggestion I am going to make is that if there is interest and concern about the terms of employment of these former staff people, what the terms and conditions were, how were they arrived at and who negotiated them, as well as the conditions under which they left and the negotiation of these packages that the Members are expressing concern about, Members have already spent a good part of a morning going through this. The fact is that it is far better if they ask me about it and they ask the secretary to Cabinet, Liz Snider.

Mr. Handley was not involved in these things and he is not in any position to answer the questions that you are asking.

Nobody is denying the Members information. They simply should have asked and attended the sessions where the questions were asked yesterday. I know that Ms. Snider is prepared to answer the questions because she arrived at the contracts with the people involved and she, along with support staff, negotiated the severance packages, if that is what you call them, and brought them to me in both instances for signature.

If they want to know whether due process was followed and why those numbers are the way they are, it is far better for a committee to respect confidentiality and deal with it behind closed doors while we are talking about individuals and for public views, I think more than marginal about confidentiality.

Thank you, Mr. Kakfwi. I guess on the process, Mr. Handley, any questions that you feel a need to refer to the Premier on, you could do that in this process. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would agree with the Premier that the secretary to Cabinet was involved in this process and could probably help us. I would certainly have no objection to her joining the witness table. The Minister responsible for the public service, the Minister of Finance, can already refer to the Premier. If Ms. Snider, as the secretary to Cabinet, was at the witness table, we would be able to get the information we need. I think there is a level of public scrutiny required here and I think it has to be done in an open and transparent manner.

We already have much of this information in a behind-closed-doors format. We are simply trying to verify some of that without jeopardizing confidentiality. You will notice that I am being very careful to only speak of positions and not names, and not get into specific dollar amounts. If Ms. Snider were to join us as a witness, I certainly would not take objection to that.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, I have no difficulty with having Ms. Snider at the witness table.

Does the committee agree?

Would the Minister know if Ms. Snider is available to join at the witness table? Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, I do not know if she is available right now. I expect that she is. She was in the building and may in fact be down here in a few minutes. We will just check.

Committee members, we only have 10 minutes left in the sitting today, seeing as we are breaking at two o'clock. What is the wish of the committee? Mr. Bell.

Thank you. I would like to ask this Minister something he is very familiar about, and that is as Minister responsible for the public service. I believe he withdrew himself from these matters because he felt he was in conflict, having been a member of the conflict committee. I would like to ask the Minister specifically when he withdrew himself as Minister responsible for the public service?

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, I withdrew myself from any Cabinet discussion on anything to do with the conflict process and related matters very early. I do not remember the exact month, but it was certainly at the time...probably before the conflict committee was set up. It may have been earlier because of my involvement on the Board of Management, but I withdrew myself from all matters on this very early in the process. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just following up on my colleague's last question on the Minister's removal in this situation, in looking at the Public Service Act and seeing whose responsibility it is, I guess the first question is, before I get into the actual act itself, when the Minister stepped away from this situation or having any discussion, but to actually step away from responsibility as Minister responsible for the Public Service Act, was that a formal decision and was that rendered in writing?