Thank you, Madam Chair. The Department of Human Resources

provides technical advice to the departments as they are establishing positions. We also provide job description training when a position is created. We facilitate job evaluation to determine how the position or what the position will be paid.

As far as decentralization of positions, that is a direction that Cabinet has given to all departments, boards and agencies in the Northwest Territories, following up on the commitment of Caucus and the priorities of the 17

th Assembly. Each department is

responsible for looking at their own operations and identifying which positions would be appropriate for decentralization. Technically, we provide advice on what the jobs will be paid, what the job descriptions could look like. We also provide advice and direction, where appropriate, on organizational design. We have the expertise in house to provide that information, but it’s ultimately up to individual departments to make choices that are right for them and their operations. I can say, in compliance with the direction of Caucus, Cabinet has directed each department to look at their internal operations and identify which positions can or would be appropriate for decentralization.

With respect to the GNWT getting larger and larger, and the larger number of vacancies that exist, I can give a snapshot. As of December 31

st , there were

1,080 vacant positions in the Government of the Northwest Territories. That number is not static. It changes all the time. Positions continued to be filled on a daily basis, but at the same time, we have people leaving the public service so the vacancies tend to evolve. So 1,080 is not specific to individual positions. It does change.

There are a significant number of reasons that positions may appear vacant. For instance, if we have individuals who go on transfer assignments as part of a succession plan, their position, their home position may remain vacant and the department may choose not to backfill it while they’re gone. We also have seasonal positions that are vacant in the wintertime and filled in the summertime. Those stay on our establishment report and would show that way.

There are also positions that technically require deletion. They are no longer required. That may appear on the charges for some time until the departments have officially made a decision to permanently delete those positions. Then there are other positions that the departments may, as a result of our cost-saving measures, choose to leave vacant for a month or two as opposed to immediately fill. So those numbers do change.

I can say that it appears that on an ongoing basis, there’s about 37 percent of the vacant jobs that need or that we require to fill immediately, and that we are trying to recruit them. Usually, about 50 percent of those are outside of Yellowknife in the small communities and we have traditionally had

some difficulties filling some of the positions outside of Yellowknife.

To that end, we’ve directed the department to develop a Regional Recruitment Strategy. That Regional Recruitment Strategy is going to attempt to address some of the challenges that we are facing filling these positions in communities outside of Yellowknife. It’s going to be informed, to some degree, by the Aboriginal Employees Advisory Committee, and I did mention earlier today that I had an opportunity to meet with that committee and talk about some of the challenges we are having recruiting Aboriginal people and filling positions in some of our smaller or regional communities throughout the Northwest Territories.

We plan to have that Regional Recruitment Strategy done prior to the next round of business planning, so we can share it with committee and discuss it and start moving forward through the business planning process to try to aggressively tackle some of these challenges we are facing in the smaller communities to recruit and retain professionals, as well as Aboriginal candidates. This government is 100 percent committed to have a public service that represents the population that we serve. We are having some challenges.

Earlier today I was asked about senior management positions and the representation of Aboriginal people in senior management positions. There are challenges. I did indicate one of our challenges is the low turnover in those positions, but we do have programs like the Associate Director/Superintendent Program to help bring qualified and highly competent Aboriginal candidates into those senior roles.

With respect to whistleblower legislation, we had an obligation as part of the UNW Collective Agreement where we were going to sit down with the UNW and develop a Safe Disclosure Policy for UNW employees. That was going to form the groundwork of moving forward with whistleblower, or in this case, we’re going to refer to it as safe disclosure legislation. The Safe Disclosure Policy is done. I have written a letter to committee indicating I would be happy to meet with committee to walk through the good work that the department and union have done. The union fully supports it and stands behind the work that’s been done on a Safe Disclosure Policy. Hopefully, we will have an opportunity to discuss that in committee.

Whistleblower, or safe disclosure, is where an employee can bring forward allegations of wrongdoing, gross misconduct, abuse or misuse of resources and not have it adversely affect them as individuals or their careers. Many jurisdictions have this type of legislation. We are moving on our path to make that a reality here in the Northwest Territories. As I’ve indicated, the first step was the agreement we’ve made with the UNW and the work

we’ve done and I look forward to taking that to committee.