It will eliminate the list, and it will replace that with an opportunity for exempt staff who have met a period-of-service requirement, a three-year period that currently exists for the priority list access. It will enable those individuals to compete in internal competitions within the public service for a period of 12 months. At the end of that period of 12 months, they'll be able to compete, as would any other Canadian, in external competitions. There will be a period of time, obviously, when those who have met the criteria to gain access to the priority list will remain on that list, so there is a period of 12 months when the two systems will overlap. But once those individuals have been moved off the priority list, then the only mechanism available for exempt staff to enter the public service will be through competition--access to internal competition for 12 months--and beyond that, external competition.
On May 9th, 2006. See this statement in context.