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Just to add to that, if the point is to have a conversation with the minister after a decision has been made, then the amendment makes more sense. I hear what Shannon is saying, and I hear her frustration. I know where the Conservatives are coming from, but if you just take a look at the committee, and you don't change the amendment, whether or not you think it's wishy-washy, or give them more time to do whatever they need to do, then it won't happen. Do you know what I mean?

Let's say in your life it doesn't happen, and they extend it. Then if you don't change the language in this motion, that conversation is never going to happen for you. If you change it to what they are saying, then it will happen, whether it happens on June 21 or July 21 or August 21.

I need to hear that it's important to have the conversation, or is it important just to say they failed; we've asked the minister and he's not coming, and—

Okay.

Yes.

Yes, that's my question.

It's a different motion if you just want the minister to come before the session ends. Then to have the minister come after a decision has been made, which is sort of.... I appreciate the conversation. I haven't sat at the committee a long time, and I certainly hear the passion on either side about getting information.

But these are two different outcomes to me. The conversations will be very different. I'm neither here nor there. If you want to have the minister come before the end of the session, that should be the motion. If you want the minister to come after a decision has been made, to be able to ask different kinds of questions, I'd also be interested to hear how my colleagues will..... If the amendment has to be there for it to pass, it would be good to know that.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Chair, and fellow Saskatchewanites. I'm pleased to be here.

Today in the House, the minister is giving a statement, and you're here talking about things the government is going to do to ensure that elections are not “tampered with”, I guess would be the colloquial term.

I know you've shared what the protocol will be around the critical election incident public protocol. Looking at the panel, it lists the expertise, or what each panel member will bring, but election expertise wasn't one of them. The Chief Electoral Officer isn't a part of the critical incident team. What was the rationale for not including that expertise on the panel?

From your perspective, are you saying that the Chief Electoral Officer will be involved in informing the public, or investigating it, or identifying it? What is the role of that officer in this process?

Right.

Right.

So, what you're saying is that a critical incident team could include the Chief Electoral Officer in rolling something out, or helping them determine whether.... It just seems to me that the person or that role within the electoral system should be a part of that team. I'm just curious as to why they weren't included as part of the team.

Okay.

Going to the renewal efforts for the public service and the overall plan, I'm wondering if you might comment about what role you think the inability of the federal government to pay its public servants correctly has played in some of the deterioration within the public service of their satisfaction at their jobs.

To me, the Phoenix pay system needs to be a part of what you consider, going forward, when you're renewing the public service. You have to be able to pay people properly.

It's been one of those questions. It's a little rhetorical, obviously.

My point is that, here is the reality, and you're talking about renewing the public service. I want to know what part of the conversation that key part of being an employer was, going forward.

I'm not asking you to solve the Phoenix pay system, obviously, but to me that would be a pretty big step prior to doing any other stuff.

I bring that to your attention because one of the issues brought forward to me was students not looking to the federal government for employment because they were worried they wouldn't get paid. I think summer jobs for young people in the government.... I've worked in the community so I've interacted with public servants all my life and I certainly understand the importance of the work they do. I'm not undermining that.

What I am saying is that I feel, as a career choice, that has been eroded. Although we're doing well, I think the impact is still to come. One way I have seen it is with young people not applying, for lots of reasons—student debt and those kinds of things. You pretty well can't work all summer and not get paid.

I'm just sharing that with you.

I have three minutes. That's really hard.

I want to make two comments about innovation and the ability of communities to work together with the government. I'm really hoping that part of what you move forward with is changing the culture within the public sector to be able to partner more authentically....

In particular, I have two technology companies in my riding, Noodlecake and Smart Call. Their struggle with working with the government is that an old-fashioned procurement process doesn't work if you're wanting to sit down together to actually solve a problem. When you're working with companies—and it's not just technology companies, it's organizations that are at the leading edge of solving social programs—you need to be sitting together to figure out the parameters first. What I often find is that the government has a solution, but they don't know what the problem is. That's why it ends up being difficult to make that leap and actually do better.

The other thing is that often governments don't know how things work on the ground. Often when you're dealing with the public service, you have the rules repeated to you of how it's supposed to work. What they're trying to do is to give feedback on the fact that they know what we want to do, and they're telling us that on the ground, it doesn't roll out that way.

I guess my point is that it's not all about hardware and software; it's about people and relationships.