Thank you, Madam Chair.
Let me do something a little unusual. A lot of times when we have witnesses before our committee we find fault and make recommendations as to how you do this and that, on everything from transparency to accountability. But, Madam Barrados, let me give you and your staff, all the way through the system, a total thumbs-up. And I say that with great sincerity.
In all our deliberations there have been challenges, and for the most part you've acted very, very strongly on these. You've acted in a proactive and accountable manner, on everything from the phantom positions to temporary staffing issues, the problems identified as correctional and others, the language evaluation, employment equity, which you've demonstrated is still a challenge—and I expect my colleagues will go to that if I don't have a chance, to see what your recommendations are for the future—to the pay and benefits officers, which we recognize still present a bit of a problem. Overall you've made remarkable progress.
I hope I speak for most of my colleagues when I say it's rare that a department has such a handle on both problems and solutions. On behalf of my colleagues, thank you for the work you have done on this. It's refreshing to see that we have such a significant portion of government that appears to be not only in good hands, but is running fairly smoothly--as smoothly as can be with all the hiccups and burps you would expect to have.
I have a small question before I hand it over to my colleague. I notice on the staffing services volumes page that you have internally advertised, externally advertised, and non-advertised positions for your executive staffing. I'm curious as to what you use for criteria to decide the category. In other words, why would it only be advertised internally, and why would it be advertised externally? Could you give us some parameters on that so we have a bit more transparency?