Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to use my Member's statement today to again bring up the issue of FMBS somehow discussing $450,000 to sole source a contract to a Florida-based company. The $450,000 was found in various pockets of the FMBS operation, which, Mr. Speaker, ironically enough, happened during a government-wide budget reduction.
How can FMBS sleep at night? They sent every department scrounging, Mr. Speaker, for peanuts; a one percent reduction exercise. How is this fair, especially to the smaller departments? How can the government reduce spending by one percent in all departments knowing full well that all departments do not have the same ability to find these pockets of cash that FMBS somehow seems to find?
The Minister acknowledges that this American firm specializes in supporting businesses and organizational transformation and that the necessity to sole source a contract to them came as a direct result of the amalgamation of our HR functions. Once the centralization of the various departments was complete, only then did he, and everyone else for that matter, realize what a mess we had on our hands. Now in order to help fix the mess, we have to spend $450,000. The Minister may not want to elaborate on what the problems are, but, Mr. Speaker, some departments of this government were allowed to sit on personnel files for years.
It is very evident to me that some departments were, in fact, negligent in their duties. The new HR department has just inherited all of these issues and problems. What
departments did the problems come from? Who can be held responsible? After seven months of physically leaving our public service, a constituent of mine recently has finally received all of the pension and severance she was entitled to and can actually retire.
Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, we have to learn a lesson from this. We have to go back to the departments that sent the problems, that didn't do the work, that allowed issues to fester and didn't know what they were supposed to do. No wonder deputy ministers wanted control over HR. Some of them should be completely embarrassed over the state of the HR and pay and benefits divisions that they sent to the amalgamation of HR. The departments that sent the incomplete files, the backlog, the problems, that's where FMBS must go to get the $450,000 the review is now costing us. Who is sending the message here? Someone has to be held accountable for the state of our HR department. Departments were allowed to just get away with not doing their jobs and I find it completely unacceptable that our only solution is to spend $450,000. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
---Applause