Thank you, Madam Chair. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a chance to speak to this motion the other day as I was sitting in your capacity, so this is my first time to address this and I appreciate the ability to do so under the motion here.
Without repeating what has been said in the House, this expenditure, really, I don’t believe it was well thought out, even though everything that was presented to committee here was under the guise or umbrella of something that was supposed to be well thought out and it didn’t occur.
From a managerial point of view, I look at this as a manager and I look at what is the ask here. The ask here is to add five new positions to an already existing base of 27 to deal with our communications. All the while, I guess the rationalization for that was because we are now undertaking, as we were told – and I heard two different numbers yesterday – anywhere from 63 to 65 million dollars more of so-called work.
It doesn’t take much rocket science to equate the increase in capacity in dealing with the amount of workload. We are being asked right now to approve the capacity building of almost 19 percent increase in a department which is only really increasing its workload by about 3.5 percent with this so-called new money or new devolution money and new way of doing business.
If one was looking at this as a manager, one would have to be suspect as to whether or not this would even pass the nose of the board of directors.
Madam Chair, we are that board of directors and, by de facto, we are the oversight here, the so-called natural ombudsmen, and I think we are enacting that power as ombudsmen to say, “This will not fly.” Unless the department has a better way of proving its need to increase this area by 19 percent of personnel, the argument that they have before committee is just not that satisfactory. For that reason, I definitely will be supporting this motion.