Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it was the Minister’s comments to the motion that actually helped me make up my mind on this one.
I think the positions are important. It’s unfortunate they’re vacant. But given that the department’s already looking at creating a training plan, it would seem kind of pointless to get rid of the positions you’re going to train somebody into. I would suggest that getting rid of the positions might not be timely. If you are going to do the training, you might as well use the money from the positions to hire the trainees and, therefore, utilize the money in that capacity.
And just as a note, years ago we had this lovely program called the Public Service Career Training Program, which was a competency-based, on-the-job training program. I remember vividly that there are renewable resource officer training competency profiles and training plans in there which, with minor work, could probably be brought forward, tweaked and ready to go in really short order, which means you might as well start hiring now.