Not the TSC upgrades; I apologize. The HR system upgrade. Are there ongoing costs related to that upgrade, and is that included as part of the $716,000?

Thank you, Ms.

Woodward. Follow-up, Mr. Abernethy.

I’m actually slightly changing tacks here if that’s all right. I’m looking at your budget. For your compensation and benefits in this section it’s about $2.3 million. There’s been no position change in this area at all, yet when I look at vacant positions under HR Strategy and Policy, I see a business systems analyst that has been vacant for seven months, the manager of human resource information systems which has been vacant for two years and a policy officer which has been vacant for a year. In light of the reductions and finding ways to avoid laying off staff, were any of these three positions considered for layoff or elimination purposes in an effort to decrease the overall budget?

Thank you,

Mr. Abernethy. Just a reminder to people that we’re not supposed to be referring to documents that are not before the House, at least not extensively. Moving on to the response, Mr. McLeod.

Mr.

Chair, of those three

positions that the Member referred to, one was filled by an intern, the other one was used for filling a position through a contract and the third was an unfunded position where there are no resources available for it so that position would disappear.

Thank you,

Mr.

McLeod. Nothing further, Mr. Abernethy?

Moving on, Mr. Krutko.

Mr. Chair, my question is in regard to human resources strategy but also on the policy side. This department is now responsible for ensuring that the policies that we do have are implemented but, more importantly, dealing with the Affirmative Action Policy. With these cuts that are taking place, a large number of aboriginal people are being let go, yet as a government we’re somewhere just under 40 per cent of aboriginal employment in this government. I think we have a policy that clearly states that we’re supposed to do what we can to ensure we have a reflective workforce and, more importantly, to try to get more people into the workforce, especially aboriginal people.

In regard to the cuts, two areas where we’ve seen the biggest impact on aboriginal employment are Transportation and Justice. I’d just like to ask the Minister: exactly what does his department do to ensure that we minimize the number of aboriginal employees that are going to be cut so that we don’t decline our numbers into a worse-case scenario than what we are right now? We’re not even coming close to meeting our goals of trying to have a representative workforce and having more aboriginal people in the public service. I’d just like

to know: was that policy followed when these cuts took place by way of job cuts?

Mr.

Chairman, as a

government, the Affirmative Action Policy is still in place. We followed all of the aspects of the Affirmative Action Policy. Of the potentially affected employees, the majority of those were non-aboriginal employees. Conversely, when we were looking to reassign potentially affected employees, we applied Affirmative Action Policy so that if there are two people of equal skills and experience, that position would be offered to a P1 candidate.

In regard to the layoffs themselves, the numbers I came up with…. There are about 60 individuals who are going to be laid off in the two areas that I mentioned, in Justice and in Transportation. There are a few forestry jobs, but most of those are contract positions. I’d just like to know if you have the actual number of aboriginal employees who are going to be eliminated under these job cuts.

Also, how much would that decrease our affirmative action numbers in the workforce? You mentioned the majority

of people are not P1 positions, yet 60

people in the public workforce is a lot of people in regard to P1 candidates. Again, especially in the area of Justice and Transportation, a lot of these people probably won’t be able to work themselves back into the public service because of those so-called skills that they follow — in regard to transportation. More of them are dealing with marine operations and also in regard to airports. But the other one dealing with Justice is more on Corrections, and again, those are two areas to fill. In those other positions you are going to have to probably retrain them to put them in another job setting.

Do you have the numbers in regard to individuals we are talking about? Also, what does that do to the percentage of affirmative action candidates in this government?

The affirmative action statistics for the Government of the Northwest Territories has been flat-lined at 31 per cent for probably the past six or seven years. I think that of the potentially affected employees…. You have talked about Justice. There are 46, and they are split evenly between P1s and P2s, so my expectation is that in applying the Affirmative Action Policy, most of the P1s that are mobile I expect would likely be reassigned. The 31 per cent has been pretty…. It hasn’t moved very much, so I expect it would probably remain around that on this, unless we take other steps to increase it.

Since the Minister touched on steps, one of the issues I hear quite a bit from aboriginal employees who are in the public workforce is they

are trying to enhance themselves, go back to school and take training, go to university, you know, get their doctorates, get their different degrees to basically move them up the ladder. But there seems to be a lot of reluctance from people from within the administration to see aboriginal people succeed and be able to be the bosses of their bosses. I think there is a threat out there that people are afraid that by moving these people up the workforce ladder, eventually they might take over their jobs. I hope that’s the intention of this government — that aboriginal people will someday through self-government, through running programs and services, be able to manage programs and services in the field that they are in. I find that in this day and age people almost have to quit their jobs to go to school. We shouldn’t have that.

I’d just like to ask the Minister in regard to the area of developing our human resources: what incentives are there to ensure that those numbers on affirmative action — numbers where you’re saying they’re staying at 31 per cent…. If you look at the bureaucracy as it is structured, there are very few aboriginal people in management positions, senior management positions, and a lot of these positions that we put out in the newspaper in regard to so-called policy specialists are earmarked for university students in the south. They know that they are developing these job descriptions for people that aren’t even here. I think that as a government we have to do a better job in that area.

I know the Minister touched on it. So since he touched on it, I’d just like to ask his response in regard to the question.

Mr. Chair, this is an area that’s, I guess, a difficult one to deal with, because you would expect that, for not only aboriginal people but also for Northerners, they would get educated through the education system and then they would be able to get a job with the government and work their way up through the ranks.

But my experience with the civil service is that if you want to get aboriginal people into senior management or management, you have to take extra steps, because not everybody wants to go into management. If they want to go back to school…. Most of them have families, and so you have to make some arrangements to try to accommodate them. I think that generally you’re looking at trying to accommodate them at 60, 70 per cent of their salary to go to school.

Those are the kinds of arrangements you would have to make, and with the budget situation getting tighter and tighter, it gets more difficult to do that. Then how do you do it so you’re not seen to be playing favourites? Those are the kinds of things that you have to deal with, and you have to have a real commitment to make it happen.

If the Minister can get information on the aboriginal affirmative action statistics in regard to the 31 per cent –– what the implication of that percentage is going to be, and with the number of P1 and P2 layoffs, and exactly where they are. Can he provide us that information before we conclude this department?

We can provide most of that information probably today. We just have to make copies of it.

Mr. Ramsay.

Mr. Chairman, I want to get back on to questioning the Minister in regard to the role that Human Resources played in the rollout of the staffing reductions.

From what I gathered from the Minister, departments were left pretty much to their own devices. Maybe he could explain to me a little bit better: how exactly was the Department of Human Resources involved in the decisions that departments made in staffing reductions? Were they involved at all? Or were departments, like I said, just left to their own devices to come up with their own reductions, take them to Cabinet? Is that what happened? Or were any of the reductions run by Human Resources?

The Department of Human Resources was involved in the discussions with the other departments. It was not a requirement for HR to give their stamp of approval on any proposed reductions.

If the department is responsible for the legislation and the policies and procedures that govern Human Resources, you know, as a corporate entity, the GNWT, then it would just make sense to me that, you know, whether it’s a stamp of approval or not, the proposed staffing reductions see the experts at Human Resources to make sure they pass some kind of test, whether they pass the procedures and policies that are in place — or the government just rushes out and does what they want.

Again, I think what’s happening, Mr. Chairman, is I’m getting a picture that this reduction exercise wasn’t well thought out. If they didn’t run it past Human Resources, then who did they run it past? Themselves? I think they at least owe it to the employees to run it past Human Resources first.

Thank you, Mr.

Ramsay. I’m not sure if there was a question there, but Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The departments have been delegated authority to do staffing and recruitment. So, as such, they have the authority to do that.

That begs the question: why do we even have a Department of Human Resources, then? Maybe we should just have a department of labour relations or something. If it’s all being delegated back to the departments, what are we even doing here, Mr. Chairman?

Thank you,

Mr. Ramsay. A somewhat rhetorical question, but Minister McLeod.