Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Power Subsidy Program has grown over the last number of years and we’ve had to change it accordingly or come in for higher costs. There have been a number of factors that were involved in that growth, the change in the way the billing was done or the rate riders and so on. I’ll have Mr. Voytilla go into that. Before that, though, the Power Subsidy Program is paid to residential customers as well as some of the small business ones, depending on their amount of profit and the size of it. But the vast majority is for residential customers and it is...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, as the practice has unfolded over years, departments don’t have a budgeted amount for an increase until we know, in fact, that there is an agreement in place and what that might mean. In the first year of that agreement, we would have to come forward with a supplementary appropriation request to meet that first year's target levels. Beyond that, then it gets put into the business plan and again the business plan goes through the whole process to where we find ourselves today. Whatever agreement is settled upon, the first year of that we would have to...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The PeopleSoft upgrade that we have gone to, 8.3, is as normal as routine would have it. Systems change and as time goes by there are newer versions of a product and this is part of an ongoing process. The PeopleSoft program itself is working okay. The problem we had recently was not to do with the program. It was to do with a technical hardware issue -- we had hardware crash on us -- which affected the storage of our data. However, that isn’t related to the PeopleSoft itself. The TSC and S&C work that’s happening is also separate from PeopleSoft and that...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The negotiation process would be based on terms and conditions of employment, so the process would be on existing established positions. We don’t incorporate what might be down the road, so we are working with their existing arrangements around that scenario. Further discussions the Member has identified are things that, as a government, we would have to endorse, number one, and then follow through the process. That type of discussion doesn’t happen at the table. If we know this is coming into effect and that would become part of it. If there is already a plan and...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, yes, the general accounting principles apply to the main estimates for the planning, and as we put this together it all fits within there. For more details, part of the process is, maybe it’s a selection process. The new community deal we talked about is within Municipal and Community Affairs and their direct relationship with communities and community infrastructure. That is where we are now making a significant change in the way that is worked, and we will support communities through MACA in making that changeover and going forward on that. With...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, we will be bringing it back to Members with much more filled out area with the direction we're going in. We'll have it to you, actually, before the business plan session. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. I am pleased to present the Financial Management Board Secretariat's main estimates for the fiscal year 2005-06.

The secretariat's 2005-06 main estimates propose O and M expenditure levels of $30.051 million. This is a reduction of $2.204 million, or 6.8 percent, from the 2004-05 restated main estimates.

These adjustments are due to the following developments:

a $566,000 reduction associated with the elimination of six positions at headquarters;

a $1.238 million reduction associated with the discontinuation of a contribution program that flowed funds to the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the current status we are at right now is there are 15 appeals outstanding around the whole government, around the job evaluation process that was used. In addition to the above, there are 32 health care employees who have filed appeals in that area. So things are moving along. There are a number of appeals that have been filed. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I had spoken to this earlier around the work that's going on with the human resource service centres. I have to agree with much of what Ms. Lee has mentioned of the reasons why we want to do this; about the coordination, about staffing, the working together and the opportunities that would provide.

As I stated earlier, the first phase is about the mechanics of this, to make sure we set it up right to get the job done and done appropriately, and, as well, to make sure that we're meeting the timelines that we're supposed to meet. There are too many...

Yes, Mr. Chairman. Again, as we go through this and come up with the work, we’ll be sharing that work with the Members. Thank you.