Tom Beaulieu

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would reiterate again the clause that we’re changing, one term, that’s what the legislative proposal is, a term of changing in Section 27(3), changing from a person that is laid off to a person that’s affected by a layoff. This is the reason that we are here. In order to change this overall Public Service, which says “any position” to “vacant position,” we’d have to take this legislation to the union and we would have to consult and we would have to do further in-depth review of the Public Service Act.

What we’re doing here is changing one small clause. This is not...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I will generally respond to all of the opening comments from the Members, but I will answer the question from Mr. Bromley first. The only change that we’re looking for in the provision where a Minister may direct appoint a person to a position, to any position, is the person would now be affected by layoff, potentially affected by layoff, as opposed to what we’re… Pardon me. Right now in the act, the individual has to be actually laid off and discontinue service. Then I would be in the position to direct appoint that person to any position. What we’re...

We’re not equipped to make changes to the Public Service Act as a whole. These amendments are not contemplated here today. This legislative proposal does not contemplate those amendments. They are in the current Public Service Act.

We agree that there should be a review of the Public Service Act. We have indicated that a review of the Public Service Act would take about two years.

These are amendments within the Public Service Act that we’re looking at and we consider to be minor amendments to streamline, simplify and improve the process for employees. It is all of the other things that need to...

Mr. Chair, I do.

I’m going to have Ms. MacNeil explain the process of how the positions are filled. I don’t know how we would go about trying to talk about what happens in the department that’s going to be receiving the affected employee and what happens in there, but we will do our best to try to answer the concern. I’ll ask Ms. MacNeil to add more to that.

Like I indicated, we had discussions with NTCL. As a government, we are one of the prime customers of NTCL. We do business with NTCL when we are shipping in the summertime. We do all our ordering in January before the season starts so that we are ready to go. When the first ships leave, then our stuff is on there. This year we did have things and items and some fuel on the ships that were turned around, but those were some of the reserve fuels that we had and some materials that we could get in through other methods.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is no change requested in this area. This is not part of our LP that we present here today. The statement that “within the opinion of the Minister, this individual be suitable for another position” is currently in the act. Thank you.

Definitely, the recommendations that were made by NTCL would require a lot of consultation with the people that live along the Mackenzie River. There’s no question about that. The main issue was due to the fact that this year they had record low waters, and often when NTCL monitors the water and they notice the water levels dropping, they’re always comforted with the fact that it usually comes back up in the fall. That didn’t happen this year, so this year we had probably a record low of all time water levels in the Mackenzie River.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The reason that the LP does not speak to vacant versus any position is because the LP is about layoff versus laid off. This is where we are coming forward with that amendment. We are not coming forward to amend other parts of the public service in this LP. The detail on how we can insert “vacant” versus “any” position, I will ask Ms. MacNeil to provide what the steps would be in order for us to bring that LP forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No, I don’t.