Tom Beaulieu

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.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are not aware of any term “legislation” that’s identified in any legislation.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We agree with the Member’s statements. When we review the Public Service Act as a whole, we will certainly be consulting with all union groups.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The legislative counsel will speak to that question.