Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to also offer a few comments on this motion. I was here in the 14th Assembly where one of the big issues was the interest of this Legislature to create a public service commission. That was a huge election issue because a lot of people felt that having human resources functions spread out in different departments as a result of dissolution of the Department of Personnel had resulted in situations where there was lack of consistency on how the policies were implemented and applied; a lack of consistency in the timing and delivery of all sorts of, whether it's hiring or disciplining or not disciplining as much, but adjusting pension benefits and records of employment. I mean especially in the area of pensions, that's a highly complicated area and I think the decentralization suffered from the fact that there's not enough people with enough consistent workload that they needed to have to develop that sort of highly technical expertise that would minimize errors and increase the level of consistency. So there was a huge debate about that and a lot of studies, and out of that came not a public service commission but a separate section for human resources. This section started as a smaller unit under FMBS, now it's moving into a bigger section as a department.
Now I do appreciate and I do understand and I do agree that there have been a lot of growing pains. I think Members, as well as the government and the department officials, found all sorts of issues when the files and people moved into one place and were in a position to review lots of problematic files. I've had some of them. I think a lot of them are going through the process and are in the process of being resolved.
I have to say that I've supported this initiative of amalgamating because I'd like to see a time -- and I think we're getting there -- where a human resource section could address the outstanding issues but also move forward to develop a comprehensive and consistent human resource plan for the government, because the government has to take its place back as the number one employer of the North and be able to attract and retain the people that we need to deliver our government programs. I don't think that the department has been able to do that as much because they've had to address and clean up the issues that arose from the time when it was decentralized. I think I could say that I could see that that work is being conducted.
That's my general position on the amalgamation of human resources that I think is relevant to this motion but secondly, more specifically to this motion, based on what the Minister is saying, if this motion was to go through, the cuts will be impacted on the benefits of employees. This is not a situation where the Legislature finds that a section of government is inefficient, ineffective or redundant, so that we lay off the people and move on with that; this is additional money required to pay the people who are entitled to these benefits, because they are at the higher pay scale or extended leave and termination packages, all those. It's something that we cannot do without and if we do this it would really impact the individuals involved. I'm sympathetic to Mr. Ramsay's concerns here about
responsible spending and making sure that all departments, and this department specifically, use their money as efficiently and productively as possible. However, I don't agree that cutting this money will achieve that end. I'm prepared to work with Mr. Ramsay if there are other proposals to improve the situation or come to a solution for problems that we identify, but cutting the benefits and salaries for employees I don't think is going to result in that solution. For those two reasons, general and specific, I will not be supporting this motion.