Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to thank the Member for congratulating the department on being the top 100 employer. I do have to say that HR can’t take the credit for that by itself. This is an accolade given to the Government of the Northwest Territories and it takes everybody, Cabinet, Regular Members, staff and all the departments. We’re very proud of this recognition and we think it’s fantastic.

The Member is right; we do have an out-migration from the Government of the Northwest Territories. We do run about 360 to 400 jobs on a regular basis that we’re trying to actively fill. I take the Member’s point that the market does not seem to meet the needs. We recognize there are some challenges out there. We are working closely with Education, Culture and Employment to identify some of the needs of the Government of the Northwest Territories. There are shortages in some administrative type skills, some financial type skills, as well as what would be statutory skills. We work with Education, Culture and Employment to try and identify some of the challenges that we have. We are also recognizing that we are the largest employer in the Northwest Territories. We are working with the Department of ITI on their economic strategy to make sure that our realities are taken into consideration as well.

I can’t provide you with any details on Come Make Your Mark. I don’t have that specific information in front of me, but I will talk to ITI to see what their thoughts are on the program and I’ll also look inside the department to see if we have any statistics on that as well. I’ll get that back to the Member and to committee.

We do have a number of programs that are designed to encourage northern students to come back and work in the Northwest Territories. Education, Culture and Employment has remissable student loans for any individuals who come back to the Northwest Territories who have been educated in the Northwest Territories. That encourages people to come back and I think we as an employer, as well as other northern employers, benefit from that.

We do have a number of bursary programs. We have bursary programs available for health care, students in health care professions or allied health professions. Nursing, social work, pretty much all allied health professions. Those funds come from Health and Social Services. We have been administering those programs on their behalf, but that is one of the functions that we will be transferring over to Health and Social Services as a result of the reorganization that we did talk about.

I can provide the Member, it will just take a little bit of time, with details on what type of dollars have been spent out, and a little bit of history on some of those bursaries. Some of them work better than others. We’ve had greater success in some areas. I think the nursing bursaries we’ve seen some pretty decent success. The medical bursaries are a little bit more limited. We find that some of the individuals who go south to pursue medicine as a career end up discovering a life in the South and not all of them tend to come back. It’s a challenge and we’re happy to work with Health and Social Services to see if we can address that.

The employment engagement survey, I think it still continues to demonstrate that most people are happy with their employment in the Government of the Northwest Territories. I’d have to take another look at the numbers. I’m not sure exactly what the Member means by slipping. I see them being more stagnant. Maybe a little down but, overall, roughly where they’ve been.

The GNWT provides really great compensation. We provide really great benefits. We’ve got fantastic leave provisions. I think most employees appreciate that.

With respect to safety issues, yes, the Government of the Northwest Territories has been fined. The Member did indicate that the department was hit with a large fine and I just have to clarify that comment. The Government of the Northwest Territories was hit with a large fine. Each department is responsible for their own Occupational Health and Safety Program within the department.

The Department of Human Resources provides some advice and guidance on how committees are supposed to work within departments, but we are responsible for things like the Duty to Accommodate Policy and other policies. We draft those on behalf of the Government of the Northwest Territories and provide individual departments with guidance and advice on how to apply them. The Duty to Accommodate Policy only came into place during the life of the 17th Assembly and we’re starting to see some positive results from that. In this budget we are putting more duty to accommodate positions in the Northwest Territories – one in Fort Smith and one in Inuvik – which we hope will help us return people to work quicker and more appropriately, which will reduce our claim costs to the WSCC. It’s no secret that we have some concerns with the Safe Advantage program. The WSCC does incredibly important work, and one of their mandates is to encourage safety in the workplace. They’ve chosen the Safe Advantage program as their method of doing that. We appreciate and agree with the intent. We’re not 100 percent convinced that the program meets its needs. The program is under its five-year review. WSCC has asked us for our input and guidance on where some of the difficulties lie, and we will be providing that information to them.

I do have to say we want and support a healthy and safe workplace. We don’t want our employees injured. It’s our goal to do whatever we can to make sure that employees are not injured on the workplace. We will continue to strive to meet that.

We do know, based on our analysis of claims for 2012, that our claims history for 2012 is significantly lower than previous years. Will we get a fine? Yet to be determined. I imagine we will. Given that our claims are significantly lower for 2012, I don’t

imagine that it will be as extreme as it has been in previous years.

We will continue to work hard with our department colleagues and our department partners to reduce as much as possible. Many departments are doing really well. There are many departments in this organization that have virtually no claims. Some actually have no claims. We do have a couple of departments that struggle. The Department of Justice, one of the departments that I’m responsible for, does struggle under occupational health and safety and we do have a high claims history. Health and Social Services, two of the authorities – Stanton and Beaufort-Delta – have high claims history. We need to do more work. I know the Department of Health and Social Services, in cooperation with their authorities, is doing a significant amount of work in their authorities, and I do know that in Justice we have taken significant steps to identify the risks in our corrections facilities and work with our staff to identify ways to avoid injury in the future. We believe we’re already seeing some reduced injuries in the justice system. But we don’t stop. We have to keep going and we have to keep working with our employees, with our partners like WSCC, to identify ways to reduce injuries in the workplace. I am happy to say we have seen a significant drop in claims for 2012.