Since taking on the portfolio of the Department of Finance, one of the most frequent things that comes to my office from MLAs and from members of the public comes in around staffing and concerns around staffing processes and a desire to ensure fairness in staffing process, and ensuring that the Affirmative Action Policy is properly being followed. Madam Speaker, in the vast majority of the cases that come forward when they are investigated, in fact, the policies have been applied and have been followed, and yet, the stories and the concerns keep coming. There is some sort of disconnect where people are applying and going through these processes and feeling that they're not being heard, and yet, the application of the process itself is being followed.
That is exactly the conversation that I have had directly with human resources. Human resources works hard and cares deeply about being a representative public service. To have these kinds of stories continue to come forward is not what anybody wants. It's not what the staff that work there want; it's not what they are working towards. Yes, I absolutely am committing to the fact there is, again, the framework approach that we're trying to utilize is meant to be one that's going to give each department looking at what are the barriers, what are the problems in the department. Is it a front end of recruitment? Is it at the advancement? Is it in succession planning? Is it in the structure of the interview? Is it in the job description? The answers might be different department by department. I want to ensure that the Member won't have to hear all those stories all over again. That is exactly the point of what we are doing with framework.