Thank you, Madam Chair. Firstly, the ability to provide bonuses to senior employees is really one of the only opportunities to provide some ongoing increase or benefits to those senior employees who are not anymore on the same step grade as other GNWT employees. Certainly, I would dispute the idea that this is an opportunity to find cuts. Every department's variance reports are available and can be looked at by the Members, including the Ministers, and I would think, if there were ongoing cuts being used inappropriately, that should come to light through a variety of other routes and tools and mechanisms.
That said, I understand the frustration with what is a policy or a process that is, perhaps, one with which people are not familiar. I mistakenly thought I actually had some numbers in front of me. I apologize, Madam Chair; I don't, so I will have to get back to the Member with some specific values, and I wonder, although it's a small issue, it is one that I can see would come up and would be a source of frustration, it may be one on which the appropriate committee wants to sit down with the Department of Finance to review in more detail, and to have a bit more of a discussion around the background and why this is there, and some of the policy rational that restricts the payment of those bonuses. Thank you, Madam Chair.