Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the history of Personnel, by my memory, was that it was basically blown up in 1995-1996 by the government as a cost-cutting measure. All the functions were farmed out to the various departments and they were going to deal with it. Deputy ministers were going to be held accountable. Affirmative action was parcelled out. At the time the majority of us that weren't on Cabinet didn't support the move, but it was done anyway and for nearly 10 years, or nine years, we kept raising the issue of fragmented, uncoordinated services, the way hiring was done or wasn't done, the ineffectiveness of the affirmative action policy. So finally there was agreement to bring back the Department of Personnel to, in fact, coordinate, to integrate, to do a better job hiring, to be able to link the government initiatives across department.

The Grant Thornton report was done and one of the pushes -- because I remember being a Regular Member at the time -- was the need for a government-wide HR

plan, and the commitment was made to do that. That was now almost six or seven years ago. Commitments were made to work on that. It was kept being put forward.

As we talk about a macroeconomic policy and the need to have a frame around all the different initiatives that we're doing, so too do we need a broad HR plan that sets the frame about how this government is going to do business when it hires. Flowing out of that, each department should have their own HR plan. You cannot expect, and that was a problem before, all the departments had individual plans. They didn't even have HR plans. In fact, I would submit to you, most departments still don't have HR plans. Health and Social services maybe does, but I would think they would be the exception rather than the rule. So this government, and the government before this, made a commitment to a general, broad HR plan for this territorial government, but it has yet to be delivered. It is a failure. It is something that was promised, and I know there's been work done on it. It's like the affirmative action review: It came late to the table so it's going to get transferred down to the 16th Assembly. However, we should be clear of the value of this; the need of this, the support of this by the previous Legislative Assembly. The fact that it's undone, unfinished business and, most importantly, the need for it is still there as a government.

I mean we talk about PeopleSoft systems where we're hooking all the pieces together; that was bastardized beyond belief when they first put it in so that it became almost non functional, and the millions we spent to get a system-wide information system back in place to link all these departments together. So my question to the Minister would be that it is unfinished business. It's not just department by department; we do need that broad frame, and it has been in the works. He's recently new to the portfolio, but it should be there somewhere and it shouldn't be a new piece of work. When would that be done and how far along is it? Is there at least a draft? I remember talking about this in the last Assembly. Thank you.