Detail. I will begin with detail. If you could turn to page 227 of the document, please. We will stand down until we have considered the information items in the activity detail. Moving on to page 231, Human Resources, directorate, operations expenditure summary, $4.504 million. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Under directorate, this activity has a lot of hierarchy in terms of the overall mandate of the department. With that I need to elaborate on three areas, one of which I talked about earlier in my general comments that was unfortunately not responded to by the Minister. That was the issue of standardization of the overtime policies and again controlling our number one expense, which is wage dollars. With that, I believe that there is a concern about the standardization amongst departments, amongst the different types of occupational groups and how we bank, how we report, how we pay out. Does the Minister see this as being a problem, and if so, what can be done to look at improving that so that, as I said, we can look at some of those high level questions? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will ask Ms. Beard to respond to that.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Ms. Beard.

Thank you. We’re at Human Resources, directorate, operations expenditures, $4.504 million. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d just like to continue on my questions here regarding this activity under the topic of overtime. I agree with what I’m hearing here today. But what steps does the Department of HR provide all the other departments in helping all the managements apply that the overtime rules are applied consistently? What tools are being used by HR to provide that?

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Ms. Beard.

Thank you, Ms. Beard. Mr. Dolynny.

I do appreciate the response. I guess there would be no problem, then, for the Department of HR to provide this Member a complete list of all reporting documents that PeopleSoft has in order to report overtime banked hours as well as payouts, and would we be able to get a sample of each one of those reports and a description of what those reports can offer? Would the department commit to that?

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We would go to the departments. It’s department-specific information, so we would go to the departments. Each department would have to provide that information.

On this specific item that we’re discussing, there is an increase of $99,000. With some adjustments, all of that increase, essentially, is from the Collective Agreement; $107,000, actually, was the increase in this area, so the increase itself is more than the increase we’re presenting here today.

Just so I can get proper clarification, the Member here wasn’t asking for detail reports from each of the respective departments. The Member is asking for a template of what type of report is available that describes the type of information that could be extracted if asked for. I just have to get a feeling for what PeopleSoft can offer, and I need to get a feel exactly what are the parameters of reporting available to us so that we as Members or committee can provide the proper oversight and transparency for public

dollars. That was my question as I think we needed clarification on that.

We can provide that information to the Member.

Keeping with the theme of the directorate, as it says provides expert financial advice, as the Minister indicated in his opening comments that the large percentage of the $688,000 or the 2.9 percent of the expenditure growth was due to the collective bargaining increases or annual increases. I would assume that these increases are not a surprise on an annual basis. I know these are negotiated over a tenure. We saw these increases coming. This should not be a surprise to the department. That being said, by what virtue, if we know these increases are coming, we know our revenues are only growing at 0.4 percent, is there anything that the department could have done to mitigate? Knowing full well that a large portion of this was forced growth that was going to be hitting the ledger, could this department have done anything to negate that so that it was in line with the revenue?

It is not a surprise. The Member is correct; however, each year on a four-year contract we do add in the Collective Agreement and it’s the increases. If the Member is asking whether we could have reduced programs or reduced in other areas in order to make up for the collective bargaining increases, I think that was something that we wouldn’t consider at this time. We think that departments are right-sized as far as personnel go and that these are the increases to the approved positons in this business plan.

I guess it’s a simple question. Again, we know that if the department feels that it’s had the right number of people working within that department I will abide by his stewardship. The question is that we knew, the department knew that this collective bargaining increase was imminent. It wasn’t as if this was something that was coming out of thin air. We know every year there’s an increase. What is the department doing to mitigate that increase to offset so that we’re not increasing our forced growth expenditures by 2.9 percent? What could we have done differently to bring our expenditure growth in line, as we keep hearing, with revenues growing at only 0.4 percent? Where could the savings have been?

If I look at the directorate in terms of operations expenditure summary, I’ve seen no savings. If you look at the different expenditure categories, we’re spending the same amount we spent last year. In fact, we’re spending, in some cases, the same amount we spent in 2013-14. The question is: Were there savings, could there have been savings in design, and again, moving forward, can we find those savings?

I will try to have the director provide some detail on the increases and whether or not we are in a position to look at savings elsewhere.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Director Beard.

Thank you, Ms. Beard. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. If the passive restraint program is in full effect, what we’re hearing is over 350-some thousand dollars. I guess the question is why still the overall increase overall. I mean, these are your numbers, not my numbers. We’re still at 2.9 percent in growth. I guess that’s the question. We don’t have an endless supply of money. Our revenues, as we heard from the Finance Minister, are dismal and they’re not looking any more favourable for the next two to three years. Are we going to continue to see forced growth at three or four times greater than our revenues for the next budget years?

Again, we have a Collective Agreement that’s going to be pending for next year. I know that, but at the end of the day when the dust settles, I run an equal sign on the ledger and I’m saying why are we still growing three times greater than our revenues with this department even though I’m hearing we have passive restraint. Could we have done anything more to bring that expenditure growth in line with revenue growth of the government? Thank you.