Mr. Speaker, let me congratulate the minister on a fine speech of empty rhetoric. It has been nine years and now she says the Liberals recognize the problem, that their eyes are open and they now know what they want to do. Well, I am still waiting to see that legislation she is promising, because after nine years I think it is long overdue. It is time that the government and the President of the Treasury Board brought in some meaningful legislation that would work.
Let us look back at the universal classification system. It was the great panacea that was going to ensure that we had a uniform workforce, that there would be no discrimination of any kind. It cost us $3.6 billion and the policy did not work so it was thrown in the garbage.
There have been rigid hiring practices for years and still a vast number of people are being hired on term employment because the process of hiring permanent employees is so constipated that it cannot work. Therefore we end up with term employees who cannot look forward to a career in the public service unless they get converted to permanent employee status. That destroys morale.
The President of the Treasury Board made reference to regional hiring and how she is going to fix that. That type of discrimination was absolutely condemned by the public accounts committee yet regional discrimination continues because the government cannot figure out how to end it.
People who want to get hired by the civil service have to live in Ottawa most of the time. A graduate from the University of Toronto, UBC, University of Ottawa or wherever, who goes back home to live with his parents in northern Alberta and is trying to find a job in the government, cannot get a job because his address is in northern Alberta.
Although those were comments and not necessarily a question, I do have a question. If the President of the Treasury Board is so concerned about improving the morale and the effectiveness of her civil service, is she prepared to commit to bringing in the merit system to compensate people on the value of the work they do, rather than--