Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a number of issues and comments in no particular order. The first one has to do with, and I think it’s referenced in the Minister’s opening remarks, and that’s the number of senior managers that are nearing retirement. This was something I think we talked about last year during business plans. I’d like to know from the Minister where the department is in assisting other departments in planning for the loss of our senior managers and that corporate knowledge that is going with them. I’m curious to know what percentage of our senior managers is going to be lost to us through retirement over the next five years.

With regard to persons with disabilities in the workforce, there was a survey done. The Minister didn’t really reference it, but I guess I would like to know whether or not we are improving in our percentage of PWDs who we have in our GNWT workforce or if we’re staying static. I’m hoping that we’re not going down.

I’m pleased to see that the Service Partnership Agreement has at least been completed with Health and Social Services and that we’ve got a pilot going on there. I’d like to know from the Minister when we’re going to expand beyond the pilot, how long this pilot will go on and when we will move on to other departments where service partnership agreements are required.

I don’t think it’s referenced in the Minister’s opening remarks, but I believe I heard somewhere that there will be a number of policy reviews within the department over this next year, and I’d like to know whether that policy review will include a review of the Affirmative Action Policy.

One of the things that we discussed, I think some time ago, was that each department is developing their own human resources plan. I presume that’s falling under the auspices of the Department of Human Resources to assist them and help them with that. I’d like to know from the Minister if he can advise us what departments have yet to complete their HR plan. If he has that information, that would be helpful. I think we were, maybe, halfway through the last time we talked about this.

One of the concerns that I think Members have and that I have certainly, grievances are a fact of life for the Human Resources department, but we have quite a few at any one time, from what I understand. I’d like to know from the Minister whether or not we are reducing the number of grievances that we have to deal with at any one time or whether that’s going up and if there is

anything that the department is working on, if there is a plan that the department has to try and reduce the number of grievances. I know we can never get to zero but I would hope that there’s a concerted effort and there’s a focus to try and reduce the number of grievances that we have to deal with.

I’m really pleased to see that there are two regional duty to accommodate officer positions that are going to be instituted in this next budget year. I think that’s great. This is kind of a bit of a new focus, I think, for the department, so I would appreciate a comment from the Minister on whether or not the one officer that we have had has had an impact on the work that we need to do to accommodate people back into the workforce. Has it been a positive thing or do you see that it’s too early to make any kind of a judgment?

Lastly, I’m really happy to see that the Safe Disclosure Agreement with UNW has been finalized and I look forward to seeing that sort of be tested out. The Minister may have said, and I may have missed it, but I’m just wondering, in terms of legislation, what kind of a time frame there is on safe disclosure legislation. When will we expect that this legislation will come before the House?

That’s all I have.