David Ramsay

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks, Mr. Minister, for the response. I guess we could do that, we could start asking each department what the HR component is in their department. So I will ask you, Mr. Minister, for the Department of Executive, maybe we could get some figures in terms of what the HR component is in his department. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would now like to provide the committee’s report on the Financial Management Board Secretariat.

The committee met with the chairman of the Financial Management Board on February 18, 2004, to review the draft 2004-2005 main estimates for the Financial Management Board Secretariat, FMBS.

FMBS is proposing a $518,000 increase in operations expenses from the 2003-2004 main estimates. This is primarily due to forced growth in salaries and benefits and the power subsidy program, which is partially offset by expenditure reductions and the transfer of the staff housing...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that this committee recommends that the government investigate the feasibility of establishing a human resource service centre.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for that explanation, Mr. Minister. The next question I have is in terms of vacant positions, and I’ll ask you about your department. When a position is vacant for four, six, eight months, whatever the case may be, that money being used, Mr. Chairman, to fund other functions or other activities inside the department such as travel or other contracted services or other expenses as they’re called, I’m just wondering, through you, Mr. Chairman, in FMBS when there’s vacant positions do they use the funded positions for other activities inside that department? Thank...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess another question I’d have is how are travel budgets arrived at in your department and in other departments? In the formula that I found consistent through the various departments was you take the number of employees and multiply it by $10,000 and then you arrive at a travel budget. Is that the case? Maybe the Minister can let me know how it is they arrive at a budget because I don’t think there is a budget. That’s what I’m getting at, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to the Minister for answering that question. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My comments are similar to the ones Ms. Lee had. We spoke about this when we went through this a few weeks back, but I will bring it up again in this setting. Can we ask the Minister to go department by department and provide this committee with some information on how many employees the government has in terms of HR function in each department, and what it costs this government and each department to deliver that function? I would like to get a handle on that in terms of what the numbers are and what it is costing the way we are operating today. I do agree that I...