Yes, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Is committee agreed?

Agreed. Thank you. I will ask Mr. Edjericon if he would please escort the witnesses to the table.

Mr. Roland, for the record, could you please introduce your witnesses?

Thank you, Madam Chair. With me, I have Carl Bird, from the Department of Executive; as well, I will have the soon-to-be deputy minister for Human Resources, Ms. Lynn Elkin.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. I will now turn to the committee members and ask if you have any general comments. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I want to say to the Minister and his officials that this is a new department. It's going through its growing pains, formalizing this new department. Certainly, I would like to see some improvements in terms of the measurements in terms of our regional office being supported much more than they have received in the past.

This human resources direction that was taken, I understand and I will give some of the issues being brought forward some time. It has to go through this

process here in terms of making an effective department for the people in the North here. I am not too sure what type of measurements will have in terms of putting it in place. This should be in place by this certain date. Our staff is being relied upon to make this happen for the government and also for the Minister and department so that he can come back with some good news in terms of how well this Human Resources department is moving along.

Madam Chair, the other part I want to see, and I am not too sure, again, in terms of the measurements or the end results in terms of what type of provisions are in place, what type of goals are in place to improve the senior management for people who are qualified to move forward in different career paths in their life and the affirmative action policy is adhered to and followed. Is there some type of benchmark or percentage that senior management in Human Resources within this whole territorial government is being supported and approved? I am not seeing too much of senior management under the affirmative action or haven't had aboriginal people fill those types of positions. I am a little bit concerned in that area. Basically, we'll see what type of avenues that we can play a part in developing this new Human Resources department, looking at the type of support that it is giving to the regional bodies that are having these service centres in our communities and also at the headquarters here. I guess I will be looking for that in terms of what type of avenue that we have, as MLAs, to make suggestions to the Minister on certain parts of this overall role of the Human Resources department.

Madam Chair, the direction that I hope this department is taking in terms of supporting our communities, workers, and the employees of the GNWT, we talk about the proposed Mackenzie gas project. Is there any type of action plan to keep our good employees? We have some high paying companies come up here to swipe some of our good employees that are in government because we put the pressure on the oil companies to start paying our people good wages to get them on board on their ship. I am not too sure how much ship jumping there will be in this department. I guess I am looking somewhere to that. I know it is going to be a challenge for our government because sometimes these oil companies have some pretty fantastic benefits, such as Imperial Oil. They have some pretty good benefits. That is our competition with our government. We are also putting pressure on the Minister and his department to hire people and retain them. Our population in the North is well over half aboriginal people. We are also putting pressure on them to start seeing some senior management who fall under the affirmative action policy. We certainly want to see our own people in the small communities for role modeling for whatever purpose. I am a little biased in that sense, Madam Chair, in terms of ensuring that we have a good percentage of senior management that have aboriginal ancestry, but also that can do the job and are qualified to do the job. How do we support them in the system that we don't continue hiring from outside the North here in terms of consulting work that has been done in the Northwest Territories? I hear a lot that it is done outside the North by firms in Alberta or somewhere else. We have good people, so I think I want to leave it at that, Madam Chair.

I know it is going to be a difficult choice on some of the Minister's part because of limited funding and the pressure that we have on him to measure up to good results. I am going to give some support to the Minister and some grace time for the Minister to take over this new department and really work with it. I want to give him as much support as possible to make sure that we have a really good direction and strong support for him to improve the human resources. It is a brand-new department that is being looked at. I know there are a lot of people out there that would give us their opinion on how it should be done. I don't really know everything, so I am speaking without very much evidence or knowledge on this whole human resource.

I know, if we treat people well, we treat them good with decency and respect, they are going to work good for you. That is the basic law of working with people and gives them the leverage. There are some people that you really need to encourage in terms of doing good work. These are basic working principles of having good people work for you, and support them. I am going to leave it at that, my opening comments, Madam Chair, that the Minister certainly has my support in working on this issue here in hoping that he comes back with some good results that would be beneficial to not only our department, but also for the people of the Northwest Territories to say, yes, the Northwest Territories government is a good place to work with. They treat us well, and they do have a great attitude towards their people they are employing. So there is no ship jumping when they have the Mackenzie gas project or any other type of exploration activities coming to the North that they may be in competition with. I am going to leave it at that, Madam Chair. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. I have on the list Mr. Ramsay, Mr. Menicoche, Mr. Hawkins, Ms. Lee. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the Minister and his staff for being with us here this afternoon to go over the new Department of Human Resources. April 1st is a big day. I just wanted to state again, for the record, I do remain a big supporter of this initiative to get human resources all under one roof and try to get to work on, for me, what is very important. That is a comprehensive human resource plan for the workforce that we have here in the Northwest Territories with our government. I think the sooner we can get to work on that, the better off we will be. I have mentioned that a number of times.

I wanted to ask a number of questions as we go through the detail, but I will just give the Minister a bit of a heads up on what I would like to get into. In the Minister's opening comments, he mentioned the fact that there is still a lot of work to do. April 1st is coming fairly quickly. By the time April 1st rolls around, it will be over a year that we have amalgamated human resources. He also talks about a review that is underway. Of course, I am in full support of a review being done, given the issues that have been raised to me from constituents, and other Members of this House have raised issues with the public service here in the NWT and how it is hard to get in and it is even harder to get out.

Just as an example, a constituent of mine, after seven months, can finally rest easy and is retired from the public service. For that, I am very grateful, but it took her seven months after she left work to get some finality to the experience. Those seven months were very stressful for this individual and others that have had similar stories trying to retire from the government. It shouldn't be the case. People should walk out with their head held high, be stress-free and not have to worry about when their severance is going to be paid, or when they are going to get a meeting with human resources to actually even go over the paperwork that is required for them to retire. I think we still have some work to do there. There are a number of employees that will be retiring in the next little while. It is important that we do that for them.

I also wanted to talk about following our own policies. Another issue that was brought to my attention by some constituents of mine was the fact that corporate human resources wasn't following their own policies in creating positions, hiring people, and there was no competition for newly created positions. I find that really hard to imagine how Human Resources could actually do something like that when they are supposed to be there to try to make sure that all the other departments and the hiring for the government is conducted in a fair, open and transparent manner. When I have constituents phoning me up and telling me what is happening, I take some very serious issue with that and how things happen there. Specific to that, when I do get a chance to ask some questions, I will ask some questions about that.

Of course, I understand that there are growing pains and we have to move forward. I have a number of questions in regard to the review that is being done. Like I said, I am supportive of that review taking place, but I would like to know exactly maybe the terms of reference for it, what specifically this review is going to accomplish and how it is going to set out to accomplish these things. I think it is important that we know that. I have a number of questions on who is doing the work, where the money is coming from to do that work and things like that. I will certainly ask those questions, but, for general comments, I think I will leave it at that, Madam Chair, and look forward to the detail. Again, I just want to say, for the record, I know we are moving down the right road. I want to try to help as much as I can get toward where we need to go to. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Next I have Mr. Menicoche. General comments.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Just with respect to the Human Resources new department, it is something that I supported at its inception upon becoming an MLA. However, it did raise a lot of concerns in the regions about people losing positions and jobs because it was centralizing. It created lots to do. In fact, a couple of new residents that were working with HR at that time kind of let the community know, because we are reading the old Deloitte and Touche reports which kind of initially recommended it, they are saying they are already implementing it, we are moving out of here, we like Simpson, we are not going to get transferred to Yellowknife. So they actually left the North. Since then, it hasn't been a great big centralization beast that people were expecting. However, we still have our trying times. I am not too sure how many people we actually did lose because I know it happened in other regions and not just the one I am representative of.

With that, I can imagine some of the trying times because of the lack of experience and expertise. When people move on from an organization, they take corporate knowledge with them, the corporate history. It is huge. Any length of time is huge for any organization, so that means other people have to try to keep up, or take two people to do that same job, or it took one guy effortlessly. You have to correct that one person effortlessly. For the most part, I would like to maintain that, yes, centralize it, but that doesn't mean that all the positions have to be central. I kind of like the effort that the department is putting into maintaining a regional presence as much as they can.

Some of that confusion is because it is new and it is working itself out. For instance, during question period, I was talking with the Minister about some of the difficulties in responding to job applications in the health sector. They were telling me that in the health sector previously, that department had the responsibility of doing the interviews and they had a little bit of a method in which to handle their professions. They have their particular way of doing things and their own little protocols, but once you move into a central agency, somehow that gets lost in the mix and you lose some of your protocol and the flow. You are usually used to dealing with the health sector. You are applying for a health job, but now it is a centralized GNWT. It loses something there. I don't know what the department is looking at, or maybe it is just going to take people to get used to that as well, Madam Chair. That is one of the indicators. It is kind of like a surprise to hear that the Minister wasn't aware that there was a bit of a gap, as it were, in terms of following up with people's applications. Just a simple acknowledgement letter, yes, I got your application. Following up on post-interview, as well, is another little gap there.

I think, getting specific, some of barriers after interview was if the candidate said, hey, that seems like a good candidate for us, I think another thing that moved at a crawling pace was indicated to me was doing the record checks, doing reference checks, as well. That was taking longer than usual. It creates a barrier because someone who is interested with us to provide health care services for our health departments, it is a window of opportunity. It is a really right market for nurses. If something doesn't happen within a month, chances are they fired off five or six applications and a chance of them getting their skills being taken up by another jurisdiction, field or sector, greatly increases. Probably if we have identified needs sector, we should be more efficient in trying to keep the people that apply more interested, keep them up to date, and keep them informed as to their status. Maybe they do want to work for us, but if it is taking too long, then they will just move on. Quite often it is like that. People look for the opportunity to live and work in smaller communities. They don't mind doing that. If it is going to take too long, they are like everybody else. They probably have families, mortgages and children to take care of and they need that income coming in. They have bills; so the longer they wait, then the less chance we have. Just within the health sector alone, I would kind of urge the ministry to keep better tabs on it, be more responsive, just the simple little things of keeping the clients informed and let them know that, yes, we are interested.

Even when I do my work, if I don't respond to somebody, it is like I am not interested in them or their concerns. They reflect that to other people that they deal with. It is the same probably in the health sector, even the smaller circle of friends say how did your application go with the GNWT? The word of mouth goes a lot quicker in that sector.

As for tracking changes and that, I think that is one of the things to look at. I am not too sure how many jobs remain unfilled too in our new HR. I know changes are on a continuing basis, so I don't know what is acceptable or if they're out of balance in terms of active positions held, if there is a gap and how they are intending on fixing it, because even skills in this sector are kind of hard to get, as well, because everybody is screaming for human resource professionals.

With that, just summing up, Madam Chair, I urge the ministry to continue keeping as many people in the communities as they can. I urge the ministry to be more responsive and interested in people that are applying to be GNWT employees or Health and Social Services employees. Let them know that we are interested and even the simple fact of letting them know that we are going through changes and we are trying to be as expeditious as possible. We value their interest and we will do everything to recruit and retain you. If they don't even hear that, then I don't know. We kind of stay the status quo where we are always clamouring and looking for people using the nursing agency. I don't know the term of that organization to fly in nurses and that. I am kind of glad they are there, but it is expensive. There is another way of doing it. It is just being friendly and informative and stay in touch with that. With that, Madam Chair, I conclude my opening remarks,

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Next I have Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I shouldn't be very long. I will stay clearly out front. I am still extremely supportive of this process, how we have come about where we are today. When I came to this Assembly about two-and-a-half years ago, I saw the creation of the Human Resources department priority. I am glad to see that we are going there. It wasn't initially on the radar but, through our Assembly process, we were able to bring it to fruition. I am extremely pleased that we are still going in a very strong direction.

I know, like anything, whenever there is change, of course there are highs and lows. Change certainly isn't easy. It is a challenge I can only imagine. I certainly see that the highs and lows, the peaks and the bottoms, are probably levelling off. I often tease my fellow colleagues here about how they are afraid of change. I tease them by calling them dinosaurs and how changes are difficult to handle, but, all joking aside, it truly is when it comes to people's jobs, their lives and the realities they have to live in. We always have to be very sensitive. I am glad that we are focussing in a direction that I think can truly be sensitive to people's needs.

I have always believed that a Human Resources department would be better suited to adjusting to the policies that this government sets out. I have often heard in the past, and I don't want to make it sound like the recent past but more so the distant past, in a sense of where our government doesn't practise its policies. The effectiveness of this is often described as we had much autonomy everywhere sort of acting and doing what they wanted to. The interpretation of our policies that are set out in this Assembly, lead by this Assembly, and should be followed on the directives, weren't being understood properly. I don't necessarily blame the autonomy function. I think it is just individual areas sort of grow and aspire on their own. Like I say, interpretation can happen being separated. I think corralling the organization together makes us a stronger government as a whole. I see it in time, and I would like to see it in a short time when I say in time, that we start working towards a comprehensive review of all of our policies. I don't suspect that would be easy, but I think, in time, we can truly work to become very progressive in many ways. I say that because I would like the GNWT, to some extent, work very hard towards becoming yet again the employer of choice that it used to be known for many years. That does mean money, but that road doesn't need to be crossed today, but it needs to be thought of.

I really see the human resource section as almost the nucleus of government. It is where you get hired. Unfortunately, sometimes, that is where you also get fired, too. Through the process, it even had growth, development and learning. It is a resource for getting help if you need it. If you want to go learn, you can contact your Human Resources department. I really see it is as a critical element to our government to be able to have a strong nucleus in order to go forward.

Through this coordination process, we have established a new human resource section. I know that the frustration of applications in the past I think may continue in the future. But I think it is certainly being minimized by being able to focus proper attention that it deserves, and the creation of this department is where I think we are solving some of the problems. I have often heard the challenges of interpretation of policy, but I think these are the types of steps that will help minimize this for the future.

Madam Chair, I only have a little more to say which is, I really think that the growing pains will continue but I see them as short. I am pleased with the direction they are heading in. I am very supportive of the fact that it needs a bit of time to continue to sort of solidify that foundation that they have already established. We have to keep in mind if we don't allow them to create that solid foundation, I guess it causes me to think why even bother. We have to give them the chance to sort of give them the opportunity to set up, start learning, coordinating in an efficient manner, which I think that they are.

At this point, I think I am just going to close by saying that I am happy that this government is meeting that challenge by creation of this department. I think, at the end of the day, we will be able to suit the specific needs of our people through our hiring practice and growth more efficiently. Thank you, Madam Chair. That is all at this time.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. I have Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to also make a few statements on the general comments. I would like to, first of all, begin by congratulating the deputy minister-designate. I guess she is not official until April 1st. I know she brings to this job a lot of skills and experience. I would like to congratulate the Minister for appointing a good candidate who happens to be a woman. I would like to see more women deputy ministers in months to come.

Madam Chair, I would like to say that, I guess with this budget, we are getting much closer to seeing this

department be completely independent and a full functioning section of the department. I believe that this is a very important thing. I like seeing this happening at the rate that it is. I have been here long enough to remember when there used to be a Department of Personnel on the fifth floor of the Courthouse where everybody went to get jobs. I guess they were much simpler days then. I don't know what the rationale was for splitting them up, but I think that having gone through separated personnel and human resource functions, we were able to see the downside of all these things being split up. I am hoping that, with this amalgamation and more focussed work on the part of the management of this new department, we will be able to make some inroads into addressing some of those shortfalls. Some of the areas that we are aware of are the areas of benefits and pension specialists. Those are very complex fields. I think that those are areas probably there are very few people in the country who could be really centralizing that. We need to make sure that we start having our own workforce who can be very well trained. I am sure there are people out there. It is just that there are so many spread around and there have been lots of grievance from employees who've had the documents being delayed. In some cases, something as simple as a record of employment wasn't being handed out. We cannot just make too many mistakes on people's benefits and pensions. These are just too important.

I think that the new department would go a long way in working on the morale of public service. I mean, I think the public service has always been an important and major employer in the North, but it's no longer the number one choice to everybody and it has to become competitive. Human resources are a scarce resource in Canada and in the North. I think we live in a very good time to have such a demand for human resources. That's more important resources than others; you know, diamonds, oil and gas, none of that. It's the skilled people, no matter what skill it is, is the most important thing and we need to make sure...I think with this new department I would like to, would look forward to seeing what we can do and what this department can do to really focus on how do we develop the human resources, how do we recruit human resources from the South, how do we keep them here, how do we maximize the human resources we have right in our backyard. So I look forward to seeing that.

I look forward to seeing this as a one-stop centre for most needs where people can come to look for jobs, look for training opportunities. It will be very helpful for student employment. It will be very helpful for specialized employment, health care professionals, or any other human resource needs that we're not even aware of right now that would need to be addressed depending on what's happening in our economy. So I expect to see this department being an expert in that field.

One special area that I have much interest in is the area of providing and setting up a program for people with disabilities. I'm pleased to see that it's been mentioned in the opening statement, but I think this is something that we haven't done enough of and we really need to focus on. We are just not doing enough to incorporate and make places and find places and maximize the skills that people with disabilities have, and to address the employer's duty to accommodate. In many cases, they can be accommodated; it's just a matter of priority. So I look forward to seeing what this department will do in that regard.

I think affirmative action, for me, I was quite amused to hear during the last federal campaign from some talks and that really showed me misunderstandings about affirmative action. The fact is, affirmative action is entrenched in our Constitution and Charter. Affirmative action is not a special treatment for any group. It means it's accepting that there are some sections in our society who are not being given a fair chance. When you have a hundred people that are made up of all colours and all backgrounds and all genders, and when you see 90 percent of the people that are getting jobs are of one sector, then, in fact, there is an affirmative action for the dominant class. Affirmative action is not special treatment, but it is about understanding that there are people in society who are not being treated fairly. I think, in this regard, that we need to refine and enhance affirmative action, but also there is a need for communicating what affirmative action is, because I often get calls from people who feel that they didn't get a job because of affirmative action or because they should get a job because of affirmative action. I don't think either is reflective of what it was meant to be. I look forward to seeing this department looking after that complicated area.

I know there are issues with appeals and grievances that need to be also split up and I think all those things, I think having everything pooled where the resources even within Human Resources department can be managed better will go a long way in standardizing and enhancing the training level and performance of everybody that's working in the department. Because I'm sure, I know for a fact that the employees of this department have been really working, you know, flat out to make this happen. I think, in fact they probably are overworked and they need some help, too. But they're working to help the whole government. So I'm looking forward to seeing that area being improved.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the succession planning of this government is. It's funny, because I used to think the deputy ministers were so much older and grey-haired men, but I'm seeing the deputy ministers are getting younger and younger and I think that says that all the old-timers are about to retire. There are great opportunities. We're already seeing a lot of vacancies of deputy ministers, and ADMs, and senior management level. If we are going to be able to provide the services that we need to for the people and become, I mean, stay being the priority employer of the Territories, we need to be competitive and we need to do very good succession planning. Of course, I'd like to see that being reflective and showing the gender balance and regional balance and the balances that we have come to accept and understand and expect in our society.

The last thing that I want to say for the remainder of time is, I'd like to see this department doing a cohesive effort on performance measurement and employee satisfaction, employee morale. I have to tell you that I was very impressed with the work that this deputy minister-designate did on the North Slave Correctional Centre employee situation. I like the questionnaires that went out. I think we got the information that we needed to add it there and I think we got a lot of work done on that.

I'd like to see a similar thing done for Stanton hospital because we are hearing a lot of issues coming out of there, as well. There's always morale issues in any organization and I don't want to just, I'm not saying that Stanton is...I don't want to imply any negative aspect to that, I'm just saying that I think it's a cohesive entity where

we hear pension issues and hiring issues and grievances issues, and especially because of the shortage of health care professionals and use of so many locums. That's one area I'd like to see that happening.

But overall, I would really like to encourage the department to engage in ongoing, some kind of a feedback system, whether it be a questionnaire or employee suggestion. Anything that gives an indication as to where our public servants are and our civil service is, because they are the engine of the work we do and we need to make sure that we do well in that regard.

But more specifically, I would like to see an established exit interview for employees that leave the government for any reason. It's not to look for trouble, but it is, I think, very important and I think it could be a very useful tool for the human resource management of the government to see where we are as an employer and what can be done. Maybe there could be really good stuff and then some stuff that needs improvement.

So I think that's my general statement for now and I may have some questions later. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Next I have Mr. Villeneuve.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Minister and his deputy minister-designate, for coming out here and giving us the first presentation of the Department of Human Resources, which is great to see that it's coming to some fruition after a lot of moving about, I guess, in the government and lots of issues being dealt with and with the other hiring practices that each department was going through. Just a lot of the issues that I was going to raise on the opening remarks have already been covered by a lot of the other Members already, so I won't repeat many of them.

Just in the opening statement from the Minister, I wanted to know, you know, the lack of control and inconsistent hiring practices that were severely off track with government policies of the day was one of the main reasons why amalgamation of human resources was being reconsidered again. To put it under one roof and make it more consistent, more fair, and unbiased, and to have a greater degree of control over what the government is doing in the human resources management area.

I just wanted to touch base on some of the things that weren't mentioned in the opening remarks with regards to the affirmative action policy that my friend Ms. Lee was just talking about, and the employment equity policy that the government was talking about as a replacement to the affirmative action policy. This is another one of the main reasons why they amalgamated human resources again, was because of the growing number of concerns about some biased hiring practices and unfair treatment of employees and whatnot. I think if the employment equity policy is going to come as a replacement to the affirmative action policy, I would still like to see some kind of internal advisory committee established within the Human Resources department with some objective. Independent people on this committee that can oversee and maybe provide some more control and direction into how the government plans on developing a public service that is actually representative of the population that it serves.

I would like to also see that a lot of the regional positions that are being kind of gravitating into Yellowknife and headquarters positions because of the lack of resources, I guess is what the main reason is being, but I would like to see more people that can, that actually work for the government in the regions have better access to a human resource representative in their region or community than speaking to someone over the phone about a human resource issue in the community which that person might not be aware of or not too familiar with the dynamics of the whole community and social system that it runs by. I think that people out in the regions will have a better, more of a personal contact with those issues because every community, like I say, you know, I'm sure that the Minister is aware that the differences and diversifications of the communities in the NWT is quite diverse and the gaps are pretty wide in some instances. Human Resources has to really fine tune to address a lot of those concerns that are coming out at all, in all areas of the human resource spectrum, I guess.

Again, just to get back to some of the things that the Minister pointed out in here. It's good to see that a lot of approaches and support mechanisms are going to be in place, especially for the disabled and the compensation and benefits issues and appeals and grievances that are going to be brought forward to the Human Resources. But I'm really looking forward to seeing this department really making some concrete, tangible differences in the public service itself. I really look forward to providing my support to the whole department and making sure that, you know, everybody is treated fairly and consistently and that people who have the formal education and the cultural education and the background to be treated in the same fair and consistent manner as anybody else in the NWT. I think that in itself will go a long way to establishing the public's trust in how the public service hires and fires employees.

Just getting back to the firing, I know there's no real people in the government that I know of who have been fired in the last number of years, but I think that's another area where the Human Resources really has to come into play and really, if the government really blunders on something or as an employer really makes a blunder and spends a lot of government money for no good reason, then instead of getting a letter of reprimand, I think the Human Resources has to go a little bit further and get some heads rolling. With a lot of departments sort of going awry on their budgets and spending money without proper authorization, then the practice of the day is to make them do a lateral movement and get them out of the department and get them in somewhere else and maybe even promote them. I think stuff like that we really have to have a better grip on how we handle those situations. The government is always looking at the liability issue, but I think we really have to visit the principles of the matter and put liabilities aside for awhile, or in some cases where it is not an issue of liability but accountability, more or less. I think the Human Resources has to be a spearhead for the government, for the whole government wide, to spearhead issues of accountability and transparency and consistency. With that, if that happens, I'm behind it 100 percent and I hope it transpires that way. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. General comments. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My colleagues have mentioned many areas that deserve highlight. I will mention a couple of them just to underscore their significance with me and my constituents. I have quite a number of GNWT employees in my riding and the management of the civil service has been a fairly common topic when I go door to door, when I meet them for luncheon meetings here, telephone calls. There's a couple areas of expectation in this newly restructured HR shop. As a couple of people have already mentioned, affirmative action. This has been fairly high on my agenda, my constituency agenda, and it's knowing that there are a number of major things that needed to happen first as there's an expectation that this one will stay on the order page and will receive due attention in the course of time.

The transition, I think every one of us has received information of some kind or another about some of the difficulties we have been having and it has not been unexpected. There is obviously room for improvement and I know the folks are on the game and doing their best to bring it in line. We are, as recently as just a couple of weeks ago, though, still missing some significant deadlines in terms of issuing final pay and records of employment; very basic things that an employee should be able to expect of any employer and we have, at least in a couple of instances that I've heard of, fallen down. Please, let's pick up our boots on that area.

Mr. Chairman, there is, I guess, one overriding concern and it's probably a more proper discussion around business planning or some blue sky stuff with the Minister, with other Ministers. That is the very dynamic, very rapid pace in which our whole workforce, work environment, is changing. It's a burning hot economy up here. The competition for skills is enormous. There are demographic shifts happening with aging workforce, with levels of education, with immigration. Many, many things to keep on top of and for the Government of the Northwest Territories to continue delivering the services that we already have a mandate to do, and then factor in the kind of things that we want to do in the future specific to resource development and allocation, a whole other set of skills that need to be developed, grown, nurtured, educated as much as possible, of course, here in the North, but also to know that a turnover and bringing in new ideas and new perspectives and new blood is also healthy for an organization. How are we going to make ourselves a good employer as well as try and fit in some of these very daunting problems that employers have with cost-of-living housing? Especially those areas; and we're going to need to be innovative. I'm ready to be a part of that process, but that, I say, is one that's probably out there for another day to get into more detail, but it is very much a factor in our operating environment and I wanted to put that on the record. That's all, Mr. Chairman. Let's do some detail.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. General comments. There's no further general comments. Does the committee want to go into detail? Does committee agree?

Thank you. Can we turn to page 2-89? Activity summary, directorate, operations expenditure summary, $1.374 million. Mr. Ramsay.