Thank you, Madam Chair. First off I’d like to just talk about visits to the Sahtu. I had an opportunity to get into the Sahtu. I’ve made a commitment that I’m going to get into every community in the Northwest Territories to meet with residents throughout the Northwest Territories. I firmly believe that it’s important for all of us as Ministers to get out and meet the people who ultimately benefit from the services and programs that we provide by the Government of the Northwest Territories. In doing so I have also committed to taking staff with me because I also think that in addition to just having the politicians get out, it’s really, really important for the senior bureaucrats to get out and meet the clients as well. It will give them a better perspective and I think it will help strengthen the public service as a whole.
One of the things that I have been pumping and pushing as I have been going to the communities is the secondment policy that we have here in the Government of the Northwest Territories. We do acknowledge that it’s going to be difficult. We haven’t had any uptake. We are going to be trying to get secondments with community organizations and Aboriginal governments which have radically different pay structures and benefit structures, so there’s going to be a little bit of work to be done as these organizations come forward. Recently I sent a letter to every Aboriginal community government organization outlining the secondment policy and asking them to consider it and to work with us on that. I do believe it is an important program and as I get to the rest of the communities in the Northwest Territories, I will absolutely be continuing to highlight this program as an opportunity to work together with Aboriginal and community governments.
Mr. Yakeleya did reference the Cultural Awareness Training Program. I was asked some questions on that earlier this week and we are in the process of developing that training. We have gone out for RFP. We want to develop a program that can be tailored to suit different areas throughout the Northwest Territories but have enough standard aspects that it can be delivered with some consistency, recognizing the differences in the different regions. We do hope to have our piloting of that done in the fall and make any tweaks that are necessary and then make it available for all GNWT staff who are hired today and tomorrow.
There has been a lot of talk about moving positions outside of Yellowknife and making sure that some of the devolution positions that come to the Northwest Territories do not stay in Yellowknife. This was actually a mandate of the 17th Legislative
Assembly, exactly what we’re talking about. The Premier has been asked questions and others have been asked questions and we have committed to working on this. There is a committee of deputies under the responsibility of the Executive who are actually digging in and doing the research, that you and other Members have been talking about, such as figuring out where the houses are, figuring out where the spaces are, figuring out what jobs can go out. This isn’t just devolution jobs that are being talked about, this is existing jobs. We have to ask questions of ourselves and all of us. Is it divisions? Is it individual positions? How are we really going to determine which ones go out? They’re having that debate and as that debate moves on, and that discussion moves on I know that colleagues and Members will be included in that discussion. Your input is valuable and it will be heard.
You’ve indicated that you want to see an increase in Aboriginal hire at the senior levels. We agree absolutely and we do have the Superintendent to Director Program that is being utilized. All the training positions that we have are filled in that program. As people transition out and move into senior management, we will be continuing to fill those positions. We’d like to see those positions full all the time. When one person moves on, we’d like to backfill it immediately with another person. We’d like to keep that moving.
You also mentioned summer students. Summer students are important. We’ve been having conversations in Cabinet about the importance of hiring as many summer students as we can. I’ve committed to you and all the other Members of the House that I will provide you with weekly updates on the status of the summer student hires and I’ll continue to do that. Cabinet is agreed to work in the best interest of the government by hiring as many students as we can. The individual hires are departmental responsibilities but we are working as HR to help facilitate those hires.
Member Dolynny talked about the labour market and some of the challenges and asked what are some of the things that we are doing to encourage people to come to the GNWT. We have a great Interim Program. We are utilizing summer students. We do have the Senior Management Superintendent/Director Program as well as other management-type training opportunities within the Government of the Northwest Territories. There are some challenges. It can’t just be internal. We have to look outside. A lot of jobs in the Government of the Northwest Territories are legislated. They have certain legislative requirements. To that end, we need to continue to work with Education, Culture and Employment to help enhance the number of individuals that are coming to us with law degrees, and engineering degrees, and nursing degrees, and doctors and social workers; the legislated type professions. We will continue, and we are continuing, to work with Education, Culture and Employment to identify the types of professionals that we need here in the Northwest Territories, in particular in the Government of the Northwest Territories. Those conversations will absolutely continue.
One thing that we’re trying to do a little bit different and I mentioned it in my statement – is we are looking at using other sources of media to help highlight the jobs that we have and the opportunities that exist. To that end we are using Facebook and we are using Linked-In and other sources that exist as they become available. We need to be flexible. We know that. Using newspaper ads is not proving to be as effective as it once did.
With respect to devolution positions, that’s the same discussion that’s being had at the executive level with the deputies trying to figure out what are some of the next steps best shared with us in Cabinet, and we’ll be working with committee, obviously.
Mr. Bromley talked about the four-year plan and asked what’s been done in the first three years. We have an annual report every year that sort of gives us the highlights of what’s been accomplished and we’ll share those with you. They will continue to come on an annual basis, sort of outlining what progress has happened in each of the years. If those haven’t made it to you, I’ll make sure that they make it to the Member and to the rest of the colleagues and Government Ops as well.
Greening the workplace. I’ll get more information to you on that. Hopefully when you ask questions we’ll be ready to go into a little bit more detail on that.
We will and we are continuing to work with MACA on community development, developing professionals in the different communities.
I think I’ve covered everything. I’m happy to move to detail and answer specific questions.