Clause 4.

Bill as a whole?

Does the committee agree that Bill 16 is ready for third reading?

Thank you. Bill 16 is now ready for third reading. I would like to thank the Minister and his witnesses.

Does the committee agree that we will return now to Minister's statement 77-13(4)? Would this be the next item on the agenda?

Thank you. General comments. Any general comments on the Minister's statement? Mr. Henry.

Thank you, Mr. Henry. I have Mr. Steen and Mr. Picco. Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I made a fair number of comments the last time we had this in front of the committee on the Job Employment Strategy of this government. Since then, I have also had opportunity to review some information that was provided me by the Minister of Transportation, Mr. Antoine, on the highway construction projects which I believe tie in with the Employment Strategy of this government because they do relate to some programs that this government has which would help create northern employment and training for people.

Now, Madam Chair, I tabled this document yesterday in the House and it is called NWT Residents Employed on 1996 Highway 3 Construction Projects. If the committee would permit me, I would just like to bring some figures out of that document. The documents refer to four separate contracts issued by this government for highway reconstruction. Three of those contracts were awarded to Robinson Trucking and the total value of those contracts was $7.281 million. Now, there was a breakdown in those particular contracts as to how the northerners benefit as far as employment is concerned and I would just like to read you the figures.

In contract number 973001 which was kilometre 112 to 124, Robinson Trucking hired 103 driver operators and, according to the information they supplied, not one of them was an aboriginal. The total number of Northwest Territories resident driver operators were 17; there were 86 from the provinces. When we are dealing with the labour aspect of it, they hired 68 labourers, 38 of them were aboriginals, 25 were non-aboriginals, 61 of them were territorial residents, 7 of those labourers came from the provinces, including Newfoundland.

The supervisors, they hired six. None of them were aboriginals, two of them were territorial residents and four were others. The camp attendant, they hired one, it was someone from the provinces. The shop person, they hired one, they were from the provinces. The administration, they hired two, none were aboriginal, one was a resident of the territory and one was from the provinces. Technicians, which I presume are flaggers or surveyors, they hired three, two of them were territorial residents, one was from the provinces. The interest parting about this, Madam Chair, is that the cover sheets for these contracts show that it is 100 percent northern content, and they claimed it.

One hundred percent northern content. Now, on the second part of the contract, which was kilometre 124 to 134, and I presume in this that a lot of these drivers are the same people and the labourers are the same people, but the listing is a little different. It shows 91 driver operators hired, one was an aboriginal, 90 were non-aboriginal, 12 were Northwest Territory residents, 78 were from the provinces. The labour aspect, they hired 68 which is very similar to the above contract, 40 of them were aboriginals, 28 non-aboriginals, 63 were NWT residents, and five were from the provinces. And the breakdown for the camp attendant, was the same as the original contract which was one from the provinces. The mechanic in this particular job, they hired one mechanic and he was from the provinces. The administration, it is very similar to the other one, they hired one and he was an NWT resident. Technicians, very similar to the previous contract, they hired three, two were from the territories, one was from the provinces.

On the third part of the job contract, which was from kilometre 165 to 175, they hired 113 operator drivers but in this particular breakdown there was no aboriginal versus non-aboriginal, but it showed NWT residents of 22, 91 were from the provinces. The labourers, again it did not show the breakdown of aboriginal versus non-aboriginals, but it showed 65 labourers hired, 57 were NWT residents, eight of them were from the provinces. The supervisors for the contract, they hired seven, all of them were from the provinces. The administration, same as above. They hired one and he was from the provinces.

Now again, these two contracts that I just finished reading from, the cover sheets show 100 percent northern content, no southern content. So I presume that these three particular contracts qualified for BIP and BIP, as we know, is an incentive to hire northerners. So it is fiction to this Employment Strategy that we are talking about. But we must now question how much benefit we are getting out of these particular projects that we have going, programs that we have going.

In regards to opportunities for people to get employed - now Madam Chair, I do not mind a mention here that I know for a number of years now we have been training heavy equipment operators in Fort Smith through Arctic College. My question is, where are they going? Why are they not being employed? We are spending a lot of money training people but we do not seem to be getting any benefit. We must have, I believe, some way of encouraging local contractors to hire these people and, in particular, northerners. Now I know that in my region we have x number of heavy equipment operators who were employed through the oil and gas projects that were going on a few years ago and they do not have work right now but I am not seeing these people, these contractors, advertising for equipment operators. I have not seen that in the paper and I wonder why? Why are we not hiring people from the other areas rather than from the provinces? Why are we not encouraging the contractors to do this? We have to do it, otherwise the whole point of 15 per cent BIP is ridiculous, it does not do us any good and in this case, 15 percent of $7,281,000 is roughly $1 million. That is what we paid in BIP, what did we get out of it? Sixty-eight labourers hired, that is what we got out of it if you look at these particular contracts.

Just as an example, there was a fourth part to this sheet, which was a contract issued to Nishi Khon Poole Construction in a joint venture. Now I do not know if this is a negotiated contract or not, but here are the figures from their job. They hired 39 driver operators, 17 were aboriginal, 22 were non aboriginal, 23 were residents of the NWT, 16 were from the provinces. They had 38 labourers, 33 aboriginals, five that were not, 37 of them were from the territories, one was from the provinces. The supervisors, they had six supervisors, one was an aboriginal, five were non-aboriginal, one was from the NWT and five were from the provinces. The mechanics, they had two mechanics and they were both from the provinces.

So I think that these figures do show that if we encourage the contractors to hire local people either through negotiated contract process, whatever, they do in fact respond favourably to some degree. We did have aboriginals employed in this case. Now I am not a big fan of negotiated contracts if the end result is not reached and neither am I a big fan of affirmative action. I believe a person should be judged on their own merits, but in this case it does show that we need to encourage our big contractors to hire our people. We have to, some way or another and I have to ask the government somehow to address this particular issue. I am surprised that this type of thing goes on without our departments cracking down on the contractors. I really do not see the northern content.

So I must say that although we are putting another $16 million of money into job strategy, we have to see some end results, favourable. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Steen. I have Mr. Picco on the list, but prior to that would the Minister like a chance to make a response to the first two speakers? Mr. Premier.

Thank you, Mr. Morin. General comments on the Minister's statement. I have Mr. Picco.

Thank you, Mr. Picco. I believe there was a question in there directed to the Minister of Finance, Mr. Todd.

Thank you, Mr. Todd. Mr. Ootes.