Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the Minister for his opening remarks and I welcome him and his staff to our proceedings this afternoon. I just have a few general comments and I know it's been a struggle, to say the least, in terms of the amalgamation of our government-wide human resource services into one department, what is, in effect, now one department. I've been very concerned with the amount of expenditure in this area of our operation from roughly $20 million when it first happened two years ago to the amount that appears before us today, which is $31.5 million. I know the Minister spoke of a decrease of 17 positions in this fiscal year and I think he should be congratulated on that. There's been some work done inside the department by the Hackett Group last summer and I am going to be very interested to see what the Minister has to say on what those recommendations were and how they've been acted upon by the department and what value for money we did receive there.

There's some other interesting questions that I'll pose to the Minister but, again, I think when it comes back to the department itself, when you're a Member of the Legislative Assembly you have constituents, you have people who talk to you who have concerns. To be honest, Madam Chair, the level of concern out there on inaccuracies or timing or access to information, things of that nature, just doesn't seem to me to be getting much better than it was at this time last year. I know we've gone through this Hackett Group report, but a number of our employees are still having issues dealing with the department. It shouldn't be that difficult for our employees to deal with the department. Mistakes are constantly being made on pay and benefits, things like that, and I just, you know, at what point in time do you say that's unacceptable anymore? Are we going to wait another year or two years? Things will happen. Don't get me wrong, Madam Chair; things will happen. Mistakes will be made. But how long are they going to continue to be allowed to happen? I think our employees deserve a Human Resources department that is responsive to their needs and to date I just don't know if all of our employees are getting the level of service that they should get. I'm just being completely honest with the Minister and this House today when I say that. I'll have questions for the Minister during the detail, Madam Chair. Thank you.