Mr. Speaker, that issue has come up. I’ve also asked some questions about that and about looking at, as a government, our interpretation of our obligations under our contracts, with the unions as well. Sometimes it’s just our direct interpretation of things. There are a number of cases where there are staff who work in the same area within the same department where one position was targeted; three positions became potentially affected. So we’ve got to look at that.
Again, this scenario has played out in a way where we definitely don’t want to be using the same processes and where we get a clear understanding right off the bat, before we jump to that next stage of notifying employees. That was a concern. As I stated, we should have got all that information together. We need it as well; we’re feeling the pressure. There was talk out there. Whether it was
the union itself sending the message, the fear factor was that there are 700 to 800 people who are going to lose their jobs. That came out earlier. We needed to dispel that by going out as soon as we could and trying to reassure the rest of our public service that there was not going to be that type of impact. And trying to move ahead at a rapid pace has caused us some of these other problems in interpretation.
I would be looking to have that discussion with the Minister and say that I believe we need to have a different look at that and see if that interpretation is something that can be reviewed once again.