Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the Minister and his staff for being with us here this afternoon to go over the new Department of Human Resources. April 1st is a big day. I just wanted to state again, for the record, I do remain a big supporter of this initiative to get human resources all under one roof and try to get to work on, for me, what is very important. That is a comprehensive human resource plan for the workforce that we have here in the Northwest Territories with our government. I think the sooner we can get to work on that, the better off we will be. I have mentioned that a number of times.

I wanted to ask a number of questions as we go through the detail, but I will just give the Minister a bit of a heads up on what I would like to get into. In the Minister's opening comments, he mentioned the fact that there is still a lot of work to do. April 1st is coming fairly quickly. By the time April 1st rolls around, it will be over a year that we have amalgamated human resources. He also talks about a review that is underway. Of course, I am in full support of a review being done, given the issues that have been raised to me from constituents, and other Members of this House have raised issues with the public service here in the NWT and how it is hard to get in and it is even harder to get out.

Just as an example, a constituent of mine, after seven months, can finally rest easy and is retired from the public service. For that, I am very grateful, but it took her seven months after she left work to get some finality to the experience. Those seven months were very stressful for this individual and others that have had similar stories trying to retire from the government. It shouldn't be the case. People should walk out with their head held high, be stress-free and not have to worry about when their severance is going to be paid, or when they are going to get a meeting with human resources to actually even go over the paperwork that is required for them to retire. I think we still have some work to do there. There are a number of employees that will be retiring in the next little while. It is important that we do that for them.

I also wanted to talk about following our own policies. Another issue that was brought to my attention by some constituents of mine was the fact that corporate human resources wasn't following their own policies in creating positions, hiring people, and there was no competition for newly created positions. I find that really hard to imagine how Human Resources could actually do something like that when they are supposed to be there to try to make sure that all the other departments and the hiring for the government is conducted in a fair, open and transparent manner. When I have constituents phoning me up and telling me what is happening, I take some very serious issue with that and how things happen there. Specific to that, when I do get a chance to ask some questions, I will ask some questions about that.

Of course, I understand that there are growing pains and we have to move forward. I have a number of questions in regard to the review that is being done. Like I said, I am supportive of that review taking place, but I would like to know exactly maybe the terms of reference for it, what specifically this review is going to accomplish and how it is going to set out to accomplish these things. I think it is important that we know that. I have a number of questions on who is doing the work, where the money is coming from to do that work and things like that. I will certainly ask those questions, but, for general comments, I think I will leave it at that, Madam Chair, and look forward to the detail. Again, I just want to say, for the record, I know we are moving down the right road. I want to try to help as much as I can get toward where we need to go to. Thank you, Madam Chair.