Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m going into my 40th year both in

working for the government and being in this Legislature, and I spent a significant amount of time when I was in government as a manager, and I have been a Minister for a while, and I can tell you that the direct appointment tool is absolutely critical for meeting the objectives of this Legislature. I can tell you that if we were sitting here and we had every position filled and no vacancies, we could be having, maybe, a legitimate conversation about direct appointments. But when we’re sitting here with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of vacancies and the issue is not how do we get these jobs filled, but it’s how do we deal with the deep suspicions of some of the MLAs and tie the hands as much as possible of the government to prevent us from, in fact, filling those positions, it’s somewhat problematic.

So in ENR, as the Minister, I make very judicious but extensive use of direct appointments and I can show you the statistics about having a representative workforce. It’s a critical tool and we shouldn’t be afraid of it. We have tons of checks and balances, and the bottom line is we look at our vacancy rates, we want to get our population growing and we want economic activities in our communities. Half of our hundreds and hundreds of vacancies are in Yellowknife, the other half are out in the regions in communities and we’re spending tens upon tens of millions of dollars with housing and other incentives to get people out there and yet we’re sitting around here today saying, but don’t do this. It’s a tool that we need to meet the direction that the Legislature has set.

So you have to look at what’s the goal of this tool. There’s no overuse of direct appointments. We don’t use enough direct appointments. If we used enough of everything, we’d have our jobs filled. So I think people have to sort of put aside their suspicion and their conspiracy theories that somehow the government is working away behind the scenes so they can appoint all their friends or they can do things contrary to all the laws and policies that guide us with the all the checks and balances that are there. We want to come up with a system where we have full employment, where we have all these jobs filled. So let’s not tie the hands needlessly of government and the ability to hire because of the suspicion of some Members. Thank you.