Moving on to 3-15, Human Resources, operations expenditure summary, activity summary, $6.257 million. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think this is the proper place to talk about this; somebody can direct me to where the correct place is if this one is not the right place. So in the Minister’s opening remarks there’s a couple of comments, one on page 2 about an Advisory Committee on Employability, the next page then talks about a sensitivity training project and then about tracking and reporting on employees, and all of these have to do with employees with disabilities or in and around employees with disabilities and

accommodating them and encouraging employment of them and so on. I think it’s well known that I have some difficulties with the Affirmative Action Policy the way that it’s currently written. I’m a little confused on some of the information that’s in the Minister’s opening remarks and I would appreciate a bit more of an explanation, first of all, on the Advisory Committee on Employability. I realize it’s supposed to help, but what’s the composition of this committee and what’s the intention of the actions of this committee to try and encourage the increase of the number of persons with disabilities that we employ? Thank you.

Deputy minister.

Thanks for that to the deputy minister. Maybe it’s the language in the Minister’s opening remarks, but it talks about the sensitivity training project; the training will be focused at directors, managers, officers, administration staff and persons with disabilities. So I’m wondering why persons with disabilities need to have sensitivity training. So maybe I could get an explanation of what’s intended with that statement. Thank you.

Minister of HR.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess a large part of that is in determining what approach our government should take to increase representation of persons with disabilities in the government workforce. We looked at other provinces and territories and we thought that we could learn from what they were doing. So we had

a session with the Yukon division -- that was seen to have been the most successful -- and they briefed us on what they saw as being critical to being successful in this area, and a very large part of it is sensitivity training for our management and also to interact directly with persons with disabilities so that they become more aware of the work environment and so that we can become more successful in addressing some of the issues that could be potential barriers to employment. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I guess I’m still not quite understanding the value of providing sensitivity training to somebody who already has a disability and is employed. So are these people taking the training? Are they there as a resource to the people who are giving the training? Again, I don’t quite understand the value of providing sensitivity training to somebody who is already identified as a person with a disability. Thank you.

That is not our intention to train persons with disabilities on sensitivity training. We are involving them so we can learn from them. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thanks to the Minister for that clarification; I now understand. I just wondered, the Minister’s statement about increasing our ability to track and report on all employees with disabilities who require an accommodation, could I get a bit of an explanation as to what that action is intended, what it is intended to do, I guess, and how it is going to be done? Thank you.

One of the issues that has been identified early on is the question of self-identification, and so this is... We want to be able to deal with that and be sensitive to that, because one of the things that are used when people look at how successful we are or how successful we aren’t in attracting persons with disabilities to work in our workforce is statistics. I think that our intention here is to have a better idea and a better tracking system. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thanks to the Minister. I just wanted to comment on Mr. Ramsay’s comment. I do agree with him that things seem to be improved and the number of complaints coming forward to us as Members with regards to the HR department have been less, so I do think that the department is doing good work, I just wanted to echo Mr. Ramsay’s comment. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, I am done.

That is more of a comment. Did you want to respond, Mr. Minister?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate those comments and we are going to continue to work hard to continue to improve. Thank you.

We are on page 3-15. Human Resources, operations expenditure

summary, human resource strategy and policy, operations expenditure summary, $6.257 million.

Moving on to page 3-16, information item, human resource strategy and policy, active positions. Any questions?

Moving on to page 3-19, activity summary, management and recruitment services, operations expenditure summary, $8.075 million. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I asked a question yesterday with regards to recruitment and retention and I have received an answer that suggested that there is going to be a government-wide effort to put in place some recruitment and retention strategies for hard to fill positions. One of the ones that I am concerned about is within the Department of Justice, lawyers particularly. I just wondered whether or not the department is developing an across government strategy if it is going to include, for instance, lawyers, legal aid lawyers that are required by the Department of Justice and areas such as that where they have difficulty filling their staffing requirements. Something which the Health and Social Services department used a number of years ago, I guess, or may still use, was a return of service agreement and I wondered if the department is considering that in terms of recruitment and retention strategies. Thank you.

Deputy Minister Tom Williams.

Ms. Bisaro.