I recall a certain time when Mr. Fortier was the minister responsible for Public Works—and Ms. Lorenzato was present at this meeting—and we discussed the whole issue of pay management. This committee was looking into this issue because there were significant delays in the issuance of pay cheques, delays that were even disturbing as same people were not getting their pay on time.
At that point we did uncover one problem, in particular, and we met with the union on the matter: the people who work in payroll were well trained, but they were being paid less, in the federal government, than others who did similar work. So, after one, two and a half or three years of training, people would disappear and seek employment elsewhere.
You have just told me that you are very competitive. Did you change the pay scales, for instance, in this very specialized field in a department the size of Public Works? Did you change the pay scales in order to better retain employees in these types of positions, such as compensation and pension analysis, etc., a field that is quite broad?