Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I didn't realize that we had that guarantee. When we were discussing this through the committee, there were no guarantees a week ago today.
Mr. Chairman, the Minister pointed out that the frontline workers in Fort Resolution and Lutselk'e working for Health and Social Services are working now. Yes, they are. The point I was trying to make and the point I would like to make now is when they were working for the health board, they were not covered. The government did not support the health board in making sure the people working there were paid equivalent to that of government employees. In fact, the resources provided to these boards were insufficient to pay them at the same level as public service employees. In fact, that's what we see more and more in the communities. An example is when you transfer the money to communities for economic development officers, we pay them $40,000 from this government. Yet, we have a support staff at the regional level that doesn't understand the economic opportunities and challenges in our communities and we pay them $80,000. We will protect the employee in the regional centre, but not the employee who is working directly for the community and making a difference in that community.
So are there any guarantees from this government that when you transfer a position or fund a position in a community that is going to deliver programs and services on behalf of this government, that we will get sufficient funding so their wages are in line with those working under the public service? Are there any guarantees? If there are no guarantees, do you think that individual is going to blink an eye if there is a job opening within the public service? He will drop that job in the community and work for the public service. Why? You get better protection. You get better pay. Leaving that community with one less human resource that somebody could train over again and bring up to speed to understand all the different programs and services this government provides. As far as I am concerned, Mr. Chairman, this is a hindrance. If you don't recognize the people who deliver frontline services who are not working for the government, but are working for community governments, band councils... All the band councils. There are six or seven communities in the NWT where band council-run agencies deliver programs and services on behalf of this government on contract. These people have no protection. They get paid less to deliver and manage policies and procedures developed by the public service. That's what I am talking about, Mr. Chairman, when I talk about the frontline people. Our bureaucracy, as far as I am concerned, are their support staff. You don't usually see support staff getting paid more or having more protection than the frontline guys. It just doesn't work that way.
So what does this do to create the human resource base in the communities that we are so lacking? It doesn't do anything like that. It doesn't create employment parity throughout the Territories. Mr. Lafferty is right, we need a territory-wide act to make sure that everybody gets paid for equal value of work. Right now, you have three people working on any site, whether it's oil and gas, diamonds or tourism, doing the same kind of work. There will be three different job skills based on the employer they are working for. Mr. Chairman, I get a lot of my constituents and Northerners, especially aboriginal Northerners, saying they are getting paid a lot less than others. They are doing the same kind of work and in a lot of cases, they have a lot more experience. One area that I am quite disappointed in, that was in the initial act, was the term "aboriginality." I get a lot of complaints about systemic racism in the job place. Aboriginal people feel they are getting paid less because of their ethnicity. That was thrown right out of this act. We haven't addressed that at all.
As far as I am concerned, Mr. Chairman, this act doesn't go far enough in the Territories and I think we should treat everybody the same under the NWT Human Rights Act and not have a separate act just for the public service. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.