Thank you, Mr. Chair. There are a lot of good arguments for and against the amendment before us. There are a lot of options out there. We put this and we do have a lot of vacant positions within the GNWT. We see it during business plans. We most recently got on a topic during one of our last sessions, but we also developed this Regional Recruitment Program where we can actually help individuals succeed and go up into a higher level within their departments. I don’t see that, but whether or not that’s being used or utilized are questions that I had on this earlier in the year. We are supposed to have a bunch of GNWT employees identified under this program, when I think there was one at the time I asked the first question. I think we got up to maybe five or six half a year later when it was supposed to be into the program.

I did take a quick look at the Staff Retention Policy, and under one of the principles it does discuss layoff and it says, “The GNWT recognizes that in some circumstances layoff is unavoidable and is the only viable option for the employer and the employee.” I think this amendment, making it to a vacant position, would also help with that continuity and that any position I know that would, as Mr. Dolynny put it, put our employees that currently work for us at ease, knowing that the Minister at

any time cannot look at any position in the GNWT but just the vacant ones.

Under the policy statement under the Staff Retention Policy, it also states that fair treatment of employees and organizational restructuring is necessary, should be taken into consideration and the value of continuity of employees in territorial public service. As I said, I’ve seen some of these kinds of actions before. As the Minister stated earlier, he worked for the government, he worked in the public service. I did too, and I’ve seen some of these direct appointments being utilized and, actually, employees not wanting to work in that department before. I’ve seen it and I still see it today, where the atmosphere in the working environment hasn’t been that dampened or poisoned, in a sense, because certain individuals were direct appointed into positions that should have gone up for competition.

I think the amendment that would be made here would get fair treatment not only for those employees that are looking for continuity but it would give fair treatment for employees who are already in positions who want to work. I know some Ministers might not be agreeing with that, but like I said, I worked in public service before and I’ve seen it and I’ve seen how it has affected the departments.

As I said, I will happily stand up to support this amendment because I’ve seen it with employees that I worked with before. I’ll be happy and willing to stand up, like my colleague, but in this case stand up for the employees who are already filling our positions, in support of this motion. Thank you, Mr. Chair.