Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I cited a number of concerns with the summer student hiring process. The process is more than just how many students we’ve hired; it’s about how we hire them and, of course, what type of promise and opportunity we provide them. I think it’s quite understood that we have an obligation to ensure that our future workforce is certainly prepared for the opportunities before them, and I think it’s an important role.
Mr. Speaker, HR at present doesn’t have the official coordination powers and authority to, in my view, fully manage the summer student problems. So in other words, they’re the gatekeeper. They get a big pile of resumes and it’s almost like they reach in the bucket, grab 10 and give them to the department. I think that better coordination and management of these types of resumes needs to be done.
Before I get into the lengthy types of questions that I’d like to get some really good detail on from the Minister, the first question I’d really like to ask is how is the Minister going to assess this year’s hiring process of summer students, and is the Department of Human Resources working towards true authority about hiring summer students with that type of authority and coordination. Thank you.