Mr. Chair, my question is also in regard to recruitment and retention but it’s more in regard to small communities. I’ll use the situation in my riding where we had a nurse who was basically in the community for three months and one of the things was that she was willing to stay longer but because it took so long she was nabbed by the health system in the Yukon where she got a job. Again, it comes down to this whole process of recruitment and retention and trying to retain people who are already in the system. But to stay in the system you have to go through this whole process of renegotiating, trying to have that position extended or whatnot. I’d just like to know, is there a better process than how you are able to…I believe this person was a locum. So to extend their contract and having to go through a whole new process where you give them a three month contract, go back and renegotiate the terms and then extend that person’s term. Is there a simpler process than extending these term limits on these contracts by way of locums in communities so that we can, if possible, retain these people longer in those communities so we don’t have to go through the system where the person is willing to stay, willing to serve a longer period of time? Because it took so long for that process to happen, the individual got

recruited in another jurisdiction in the Yukon. Is that something that your department could consider looking at? Is that something you are looking at?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister McLeod.

Mr. Chairman, also another area that I think we have to be constant with or consider is in regards to when we basically put out calls for certain positions. We basically develop a sort of criteria for a person you are looking for. A lot of times those same people are here in the North but they may not pop up with the criteria you are looking for. They are almost there but they are not quite certified or they don’t have the certification to fulfill that position.

I think one thing that we are missing in this government that they used to have in the past is in regards to...It is too bad that we still don’t have it. It is in the whole area of training and in-house training where you actually have people that you hire at a certain level and give them the time to achieve that objective of what the condition of that person you are looking for. We can’t find the people that we want but we have people in the North living here who have certain certifications, but they may not have a master’s degree but basically have a diploma of some sort that gives them that certification. They have the basic understanding of that position. I would like to know is that something that we can consider when we talk about recruitment that we offer these positions, subject to those people concluding those positions. I hate to use the position of health care workers or looking at mental health workers because I have been talking about it for three days.

The point I am trying to make is that there are people in the Northwest Territories who have certain degrees, but may not meet these standards of what we are looking for but they are here. How can we entice those people to come work for the Government of the Northwest Territories, give a little bit of training, get them certified and get them into the workplace?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Certainly, this is something that we are looking at

through our Corporate Human Resource Strategy. The Member is correct; it is something that we used to do when the budgets would allow us to do it, because it is a little more expensive way of doing business. It is certainly something that I know some of the departments have been doing, especially for hard-to-fill positions. We have been working with individuals. Certainly it is always easier to deal with before competition goes out, so that if we know of individuals that need a little bit of training, we call them under-filling. We can under-fill positions and work with them to get their required training. This is certainly an area that we will be looking at through the Corporate Human Resources Strategy. Of course, as a government, we encourage and utilize equivalencies on most of the competitions that we run. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Also, another area that this government should seriously consider when you talk about recruitment and management is the whole area of job sharing. I know there are a lot of people in the different areas, especially where there are stressful positions. I use social workers...People in that area, a lot of times get burnt out. They want to stay in the government but they want to move on and maybe do something that is not as stressful, maybe go work for Education versus working for Health. I think we should have a system in place that allows those people to be able to move within the government. They bring certain expertise but also they basically have an opportunity to job share or be able to work within the government so they can get experiences in different areas. It is sort of the same fundamentals but it is just a matter of moving say from income support to Social Services to Justice. But at least once they decide which career path they want to take and maybe go back to school and become a lawyer, a doctor or a psychologist, at least give them the opportunity to get some experiences in the different departments. I am wondering if that is something that has been considered in regards to try their own, continue to maintain what we have but also allow them the flexibility that they can move to certain areas that they might be interested in and not just put them in a cubicle and say here, you are stuck here for 20 years, you are not going to get out. Is that something that you have considered in regards to the flexibility of having our long-term staff in the government which remain in the government which also want to be able to move on to different areas?

Job sharing is something that we encourage. It is provided for us through the collective agreements that we have. It is something that we find is working really well for those that choose to do so. I think what you are talking about is what we refer to as transfer assignments. This is something that we do a lot of in the government. We try to encourage that by making sure that we

post jobs in sufficient time so that if people are interested they can approach us and, by all means, if they are individuals that are looking at moving or looking for a change, certainly we would encourage them to contact us or work through their managers, because we want to keep all of our employees and make them happy. Thank you.

I have a last question in this area. In regards to your opening comments, I know that you said you are working collaboratively with community and aboriginal governments to improve the public service capacity at community levels. I think that there used to be ways of seconding people within the government to go work for aboriginal organizations or work for municipalities so that you are able to fill in the gaps where you know there are good people in government but they can do just as good a job in our communities. That is the biggest challenge we face is the whole capacity issue in a lot of our communities dealing with MACA or dealing with the band councils. You have a good band manager and a good SAO, a hamlet goes a long way to have somebody there that has some internal government experience so when they do go working for one of the different organizations within municipalities or bands, they bring that knowledge with them. A lot of the times that is all that is needed for a lot of these groups to more forward. I would just like to know if that is something, in regards to that statement, where you are looking at possibly going. I know there was a recruitment program in the past for people who were able to get seconded for a couple of years to go work for a different organization and then come back to the government after that transfer. Is that still there?

I think that is part of our line of thinking. We have written to all of the aboriginal governments and municipal governments seeking their input into how we can collaborate and work closer together to help develop capacity as part of our corporate human resource strategic planning. As well, through strategic initiatives, we have identified funding to go to the Department of Human Resources, but it will likely be transferred to MACA whereby we will be working with them to see how we can work together with the municipalities and aboriginal governments to help them develop capacity. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

There is something on the page that I always wanted to ask about. It is called “other expenses.” I know previously it used to be always asked in this House. What are these other expenses?

It is broken out by regions, regional centres. We have $110,000 for management unit, $21,000 for client services, $21,000 for allied health recruitment, and then we

have a breakdown between regions. We have $25,000 in Tlicho, $52,000 for Fort Smith, $42,000 for Hay River, $138,000 for Inuvik, $48,000 for Sahtu, $42,000 for Deh Cho, for a total of $499,000.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Thank you, committee, Page 3-19, management and recruitment services, operations expenditure summary, $7.295 million.

Page 3-20, management and recruitment services, active positions. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be consistent with my questioning here. I would like to ask the department if they can give me a breakdown in regards to these positions in regards to P1s, P2s, and P3s. If you don’t have that information with you, I would like to maybe have the paper copies. I would just like to know where we stand in regards to the Affirmative Action Policy in the HR.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister McLeod.

For the department, we have 37 percent aboriginal employment, but if the Member wants a breakdown by P1s, P2s, P3s, we will provide that to him. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Also, is it possible if we can have a breakdown by people with disabilities and maybe gender?

It may be a privacy issue, but if it isn’t we will provide the information to Mr. Krutko. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Thank you, committee. Page 3-20, management and recruitment services, active positions.

Thank you.

We are moving on to 3-22 and 3-23, corporate human resources, operations expenditure summary, $10.207 million.