Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today in the House to speak about the April 2003 Deloitte and Touche report calling for a centralized human resource centre. It will draw significant benefits to our government. During fiscal restraints and tough times, it makes sense to consolidate programs and services, and we share that mandate across the territorial government. Mr. Speaker, yesterday I spoke passionately about the TSC, our technological services centre, and what a great model it is and how it can work. I even saw enthusiasm in the Minister's eyes when he spoke about it yesterday.
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I'm losing time on my clock here, Members.
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Mr. Speaker, I'm talking about a model and I'm talking about how we can pool our resources and get a great bang for our buck. I'm a huge proponent for a centralized model for a government human resources section. In addition, we can gain in terms of efficiencies, cost savings and a standardization of hiring practices. But if we don't have clear and fair hiring practices, who knows what the little autonomies out there in departments and agencies are doing on their own. We've all heard of the phrase Darwinian law; well, those policies and hiring practices could have evolved to who knows what by now.
Over the years the GNWT has established a number of programs and policies that are aimed to nurture a representative public service; the Affirmative Action Policy being a primary one, but policies are only effective if they are properly adhered to. So my question would be who really monitors these things unless someone complains? We need some consistency and fairness on our hiring practices. I believe, Mr. Speaker, that assembling government hiring in one centralized area will increase government accountability to implement a fair hiring practice to achieve a representative public service, but this must be done across the board. A large portion of our government public service hiring is administered outside of departments through boards, agencies and corporations. If we are looking to consolidate human resource functions where appropriate, and therein lies the critical mass and we need it to bring it together.
Mr. Speaker, Regular Members had the opportunity during the draft mains of 2004-2005 and spoke with their support in Committee of the Whole with the motion.
Mr. Speaker, may I seek unanimous consent to continue my statement? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.