Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Affirmative Action Policy was transferred to the Department of the Executive this fiscal year. I want to assure the Member, this government is fully committed to the principles of affirmative action. We have indeed taken action to try and involve more aboriginal people in the public service. There are on record many examples in the past where we have done so. Incidentally, Mr. Speaker, I am aware that the Premier has been preparing a document that he is prepared to put before this House. He has not been able to do so in the last few days, but I believe the plan is for the document on affirmative action to be tabled in this House on Thursday or Friday. Thank you.

Oral questions. Supplementary, Mr. Krutko.

Mr. Arlooktoo.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I recall that a committee was struck early on in the life of this Assembly to look at the Affirmative Action Policy. This was an issue of concern to many Members of this House. I believe that Mr. Picco, Mr. Erasmus and Mr. Miltenberger were members of the committee that was struck and there may have been more Members. The government put together a draft policy and provided it to this Assembly and gave it to the committee for review. The committee reviewed this draft policy and reported on it in June 1997. Since that time, there has been a working group established, there has been more research and recommendations put in place. As I said earlier, Mr. Speaker, the government is firmly committed to affirmative action. We have taken actions to ensure that more aboriginals are involved. We do need to balance the affirmative action hiring based on merit, et cetera. As I said earlier, the Premier has been working on a document that outlines for all Members

what the government has done and will be doing and what it proposes to do and that will be tabled later this week.

Oral questions. Supplementary, Mr. Krutko.

Mr. Arlooktoo.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First, I wanted to respond just a part of what the Member had said in saying that there are, indeed, yes, many non-aboriginal people in our workforce and many of them are very committed, hard working and good people and many who were born and raised in the north. That is very important to us and we value each and every one of our workers. I also wanted to say that, in trying to obtain a more representative workforce, this type of exercise takes time, sometimes it takes a long time. If I can use, for example, the situation that is occurring in Nunavut where 85 percent of the population is Inuit and we had set the fairly ambitious goal of 50 percent Inuit representation in the workforce, in the general workforce, and management by division and eventually reaching 85 percent several years down the road. It is not the type of exercise that you can rush forward and push through overnight. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Oral questions. Final supplementary, Mr. Krutko.

Mr. Arlooktoo.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know we have put together and provided those types of statistics to the House before and we can do that again. I would just invite the Member to work with us to put forward his suggestions on what more we can do and what other areas we should be working in. As I said earlier, the document that the Premier will table later this week will show that this government is doing a good committed job in working towards hiring more aboriginal people in our work force. Thank you.

Oral questions. Mr. O'Brien.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister responsible for the FMBS, Mr. Todd. Mr. Todd, in relation to the pay equity issue and union negotiations, can the Minister give us some more detail as to what the impact will be once these negotiations are completed, for example on the nurses? Thank you.

Can I ask the Member if he can rephrase the question. Maybe on what impact the nurses would have according to the Hay Plan or the new classification plan. Mr. O'Brien.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will rephrase the question. Mr. Todd, what can the nurses expect once the new Hay Plan schedule is fully in place? Thank you.

The Minister responsible for the Financial Management Board, Mr. Todd.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I indicated earlier this week to a similar question, if we can get a collective agreement out there to our membership and we get a positive response, which I am optimistic we will get, our nursing fraternity at the community level would get somewhere in the

region of $9,000 to $13,000 pay adjustment based upon the new Hay Plan Job Evaluation System that we now have in place. The optimum issue here is, will the UNW in fact come to an agreement this week or next week and if and when they do will they get it out to the membership so they can vote on it. I certainly hope so. Thank you.

Oral questions. Supplementary, Mr. O'Brien.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am not quite sure if this question is appropriate given the fact that the negotiations are not completed yet, if Mr. Todd would comment on this figure between $9,000 and $13,000. If there is any impact on this figure, or if there is any relationship, to the pay equity situation, or is it completely separate? Thank you.

Mr. Todd.

There are two components to what we are doing, Mr. Speaker. There is a retroactivity to pay equity. If we could get an agreement on pay equity which, to put it quite candidly, extremely disappointed that we were not able to move as aggressively as we should have on, so there is the retroactivity from when a nurse started, in 1988, I believe this complaint goes back, to the present day. That is a significant amount of money for the nursing fraternity and others, and then there is the ongoing pay changes that have taken place because we have put into place the Hay Plan Job Evaluation System. I do not know if that explains it or not. What you have is, we are at the collective bargaining right now with the UNW. If they agree with the changes that we have recommended, and the monies we put forward both in the collective agreement and in the adjustment evaluation systems, then the nursing fraternity will get a significant increase somewhere between $9,000 and $13,000, plus some of the additional collective bargaining components that are underway right now. They will not be able to get any retroactive pay on the pay equity side, unless we get an agreement on that.

To date, the UNW has insisted that I decouple it, and so, if some Members of this House, and I, have suggested on a number of occasions that by decoupling it, the reality is, we will not get the agreement for years to come and it will be in the courts. My preference would be that we would move forward on both these initiatives, so we can put new money, more money, in the hands of our employees. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case from my UNW colleagues and union at this time so we are going to deal with the collective agreement and hopefully come to some resolve this week, or next week, get it out to the membership, let them rightly vote yes and no on it. Assuming that they vote yes, which I hope they will, put some money into the hands of our employees before Christmas.

Oral questions. Supplementary, Mr. O'Brien.