Mr. Pollard.

Mr. Chairman, thank you. It is to do with our human resource planning policy. I guess it is a very short and to-the-point sentence. "A qualified" means to us that we would like to see northerners trained and able to move into government jobs in the Northwest Territories. When we say "representative", we mean that they should represent all groups in the Northwest Territories, and that is what we are working towards by saying that we are developing that. After that, it is our job to maintain those people and make sure that they stay in our organization, so it is our human resource planning strategy, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pollard. Mr. Koe.

Thank you for that explanation. Moving on to number four: "A good working environment is maintained through establishing contractual relationships with staff...". Can the Minister clarify the phrase "contractual relationships"? What does that mean and how do you propose to achieve this goal?

Mr. Pollard.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think we are mostly referring to our contractual relationships with our unions or collective agreements, but within that broader context, there are other things, such as the ways we handle complaints, the way we deal with issues that plague us each day, back and forth, so we make reference to our collective agreement and, also within that, the day-to-day business of employer/employee relationships. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Pollard. Mr. Koe.

Mahsi. I asked the question as I was hoping that they weren't going to start establishing contracts with every staff in the system. I am glad you clarified that.

Moving on to the definitive objectives, I have some questions on the details on page 02-21. Under human resource management, the definitive objective there: "To develop and start delivering pre-retirement training courses". I am very curious as to why this is a definitive objective this year. I was always under the impression that these courses were ongoing and you had a pre-retirement training course. My question is, is this new and haven't there been other courses in this regard before?

Mr. Pollard.

Mr. Chairman, supply and services offered a two-day pre-retirement course in Yellowknife. It is available to both federal and GNWT employees. We have identified a need to develop a program that can be used in Yellowknife as well as in regional centres. In order to do that, we are going to get some resource materials, video tapes, training aids and financial planning worksheets together. That

stuff is already available, for the most part, and we hope to build upon the experience that we have already got and develop a new program that we can deliver, not only in Yellowknife but across all of the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Pollard. Mr. Koe.

Thank you. Another one that interests me is the objective to provide employees a written explanation of pay stub detail. The questions that come to mind are, who has asked for this and at what cost will this be done?

Thank you. Mr. Pollard.

Mr. Chairman, we get numerous enquiries with regard to pay stub detail and we think we can cut down on those enquiries and the amount of time that it takes to deal with those enquiries if we were to provide to all our employees a written explanation of the detail. Hopefully, that would cut down on some anxiety by them and some time saved for ourselves in responding to all those concerns. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Koe.

Mahsi. Another question is, in the restructuring and reorganization, there was a question that was raised or issue brought up by the Standing Committee on Finance on affirmative action. My question is, who now has the responsibility for affirmative action programs?

Mr. Pollard.

The policy rests with the Financial Management Board, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pollard. Mr. Koe.

Under the activity of financial management, there is an objective to develop a training program on forms completion. Is this for forms completion for the public or for staff?

Mr. Pollard.

It is for our internal staff. Mr. Chairman, I was tempted to say that we might need to develop a training program for the people filling in the payroll tax form.

---Laughter

I don't know, Mr. Chairman, if you are familiar with all the forms that we have in the Government of the Northwest Territories but some of the ones that I have to sign are very confusing. I think, if we develop a program on forms completion, we will probably get some suggestions on how we can make those forms simpler, and I would welcome some of those recommendations to us. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Pollard. Mr. Koe.

My last question is on the audit evaluation activity, "...to implement components of the informatics strategy". Can the Minister briefly brief us as to what the informatics strategy is?