Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Through the Office of the Auditor General, this has been earmarked to our attention. We need to deal with the personnel within our income support office, especially the client service officers. We have implemented some changes already. At this time, we are developing a competency-based training program for our staff and it’s going to be developed through initial discussions with CSOs and we are having a trainer come up. This is an area that has been earmarked by the Office of the Auditor General, so we are moving forward, along with the Hay River Reserve and other communities that may have faced these types of incidents in the past. It’s been brought up in the House, so we are seriously looking into that. Mahsi.

I think the Minister reminded me of the significance of the Auditor General’s report, in terms of program service delivery of his department in terms of meeting the needs of people.

Once again, can the Minister outline and explain to this House the immediate steps in terms of improving that service to clients? Mahsi.

Part of the plan is, again, a competency-based training program that is going to be broad across the Northwest Territories that the client service officers deal with, so we can develop a professional base dealing with the clientele. There’s also going to be a work-based training program that will be introduced, exchanging information and so forth. Also, there will be a conference for CSOs in January 2014, enhancing staff and knowledge so they’re aware of who is working, skills and abilities, and also on-line discussion and information sharing. These are just some of the key areas that we are implementing within our department to enhance our client service officers, the professionalism that they should be delivering to the clientele. Mahsi.

Thank you. The Minister indicated that he’s taking measures in terms of ensuring that workers received competency-based training and at the same time ensuring that the people are treated with a little respect in terms of receiving department services.

What is the priority at this point? Is it ensuring that the employees receive competency-based training or client satisfaction? Mahsi.

Mahsi. My belief is that it is a combination. We need to satisfy both. We need to have individuals that are working, client service officers that are providing dignity and

respect to our clientele and also having those individuals that we have to deal with clientele. So we are developing programs that will capture that, providing competency-based training and identifying caseloads. We have some of the communities that have a high number of caseloads, so we are currently reviewing those caseloads. That will capture the attention of client service officers, especially in the small, isolated communities. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I understand each GNWT employee is bound by a Code of Conduct. I wanted to know how can the Code of Conduct of any GNWT employee ensure that, indeed, GNWT employees work in a professional manner and, indeed, provide services to clients in a manner that’s respectful and dignified. Mahsi.

Mahsi. That’s the very reason why we have this competency-based training program. There is a Code of Conduct within our Education department, within the income support division, and at the same time we have to work with other departments as well. They do have their own disciplinary procedures, as well, the social envelope departments. We work with MACA, Housing, Social Services, Health and other departments. When we deal with the clientele, it’s not only income support. There are other departments that we have to work with. That’s the whole reason why we developed this competency-based, based on the Office of the Auditor General. We want to make it work. We want to make it work for our clientele and that’s what we’re doing. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I talked about the need for public sector salary disclosure and this is not the first time I’ve raised this particular matter in the House. I’ve cited several provinces across this country that have databases or have even tabled public reports, a sample of course, an excerpt of a public report from Ontario that does this.

I’d like to ask the Minister of Human Resources what’s stopping him from publicly tabling a disclosure paper or document that demonstrates and clearly shows transparency of all salaries over $100,000 and more, and that would include, of course, public sector employees, boards, agencies, et cetera. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My understanding at this time is that there’s a privacy rights issue for individuals not to have their names and exact salaries printed in a paper. GNWT salary grids including everybody that makes over $100,000, that would be the deputy senior management. All of those salary grids are on the Human Resources website right now. Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate that good attempt at an answer by the Minister, because he talked about privacy rights. I’d like to draw the public’s attention, and more specifically the Minister of Human Resources’ attention, to a document I found on Northern News Services website. It’s dated April 27, 1998, and it’s quoted as such that Premier Don Morin, oddly enough the old Member for Tu Nedhe, had succumbed to the pressure of Regular Members and tabled all salaries of these employees with their names attached to that.

So if we’ve done it in the past, what’s stopping us today from doing it going forward? Thank you.

Thank you. Likely the law is stopping us from doing it, but I can check with the Department of Human Resources and if there are no privacy laws that we are breaking to print people’s individual salaries, then I can discuss that further with the Members across. Like, probably go to the committee as opposed to just saying that I’m going to table people’s salaries here in the Legislative Assembly. Thank you.

I suspect that laws have evolved in such a manner that we can only use the black highlighter when we explain things. Quite often Members want information.

I’ve invested quite a bit of time in a document that’s a few pages and it’s potentially a private member’s bill. It’s called the Private Sector Salary Disclosure Act.

I’d like to know if the Minister of Human Resources would be interested in co-sponsoring this act me with so the public can finally have true accountability, which is happening across this country from Nova Scotia to B.C. Now it’s time the Northwest Territories joins the rest of Canada. Thank you.

Thank you. Likely I will not join in the sponsorship of that bill. It sounds like the majority of the jurisdictions are still not disclosing all of the individuals’ salaries publicly. Another thing is that the Territories has a very small population. I suppose when you’re dealing with millions of people, and people make the decision to print people’s salaries, most people don’t know who the specific people that have their salaries printed are. But in our jurisdiction I know that there are very few people and everybody knows everyone, and I don’t think that that would be something that would be appropriate. But I would still check legally. If we can

do it legally, then like I said, we’ll work with committee to get something like this done.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s one of the few times we’ll ever say this, but apparently size doesn’t matter on this particular issue. In Vancouver, you just type a person’s name and it will give you the information.

As I tabled in this very House, I only tabled a small excerpt, but in Ontario they go very detailed, down to the name, the position and whatnot.

The last thing I’ll say is I’ve drafted a Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act. Would the Minister be interested in this particular project that I’ve been working on and would he see what he could do to get behind it? Thank you.

Thank you. The department and myself would be glad to review that bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of the Housing Corporation. I’d like to follow up on a bit of a pet subject of mine and that’s homelessness.

Some time ago, I guess it was in 2011, we received a report on homelessness in Yellowknife. Following that there was a commitment from the government to hire a homelessness coordinator. That has been done and I’m very pleased to see that we’ve had that coordinator for going on to a full year now, I think.

The Premier and the Minister both promised an evaluation of the two programs that we had before we got the homelessness coordinator and my understanding is that the evaluation of those two programs has been done. But about a year ago, not quite, the Minister indicated a review of cross-departmental, throughout the whole government evaluation of homelessness programs and what was required was going to take some time.

I’d like to know from the Minister if that fulsome review of homelessness within the GNWT has been done and when we might be able to see it.