Thank you, Madam Chair. One of the tools that we have put in place is the new Duty to Accommodate Policy that became active early in the life of this Assembly. That is a policy that is written by the Department of Human Resources on behalf of the Government of the Northwest Territories. All departments have to apply that policy accordingly and are ultimately responsible for the results of those policies within their departments. It is a new policy and I have already outlined some of the successes we’ve had with it in the last year. We are seeing some positive results.

We are going to put more duty to accommodate officers out in the field so that we can have even more positive responses. We are also responsible on behalf of the government for trying to set up some parameters around occupational health and safety committees with draft terms of references that departments can use as they establish their own occupational health and safety committees within their departments, which is something that they’re responsible for. That template is available and we are starting to see more occupational health and safety committees popping up in the Government of the Northwest Territories, which is a good thing and something we all want to see.

We do offer some training through the Department of Human Resources that GNWT staff can attend. They still have to get approval from their

departments to attend it, but there is health and safety education and training programs offered on a regular basis. We also work closely with the WSCC to make their programming available to GNWT staff as well. We do facilitate some processes, we do have some duty to accommodate officers that are available to departments as they’re trying to deal with some of these individuals that we do have to accommodate and find ways to creatively get them back into the workforce.

I’m not saying that the Department of Human Resources has no responsibility, I have never said that, but a lot of the ultimate decisions are those of the departments, and we put tools and offer advice and guidance so that they can utilize those tools in an appropriate way.

If you go through the list of departments that are out there, we have a large number of departments that have zero claims history. Some stuff is out there, some departments have good success, others not so much.

As I’ve indicated, as the Minister of Justice, we are taking measures and activities within that department to address our challenges within Justice and I think we’re going to see some results there as well.

I applaud the Minister and the department on putting duty to accommodate on the forefront, but I believe this is, by and large, more of a result of an injury and we are doing something with the person thereafter to accommodate. I am talking about preventing injury, the first part of the exercise. What tools or mechanisms? The Minister mentioned training and so forth.

When we have a company, if I use the word loosely, of 5,000 employees, how many safety officers dedicated to safety do we have working for the GNWT whose prime source and prime responsibility is the safety of our employees? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, we have occupational health and safety coordinators in a number of departments, boards and agencies. I can get that number for the Member.

As far as tools and resources that the Department of Human Resources has in place or is preparing to assist in the workplace, we have the Occupational Health and Safety Policy, which is a GNWT policy that departments, boards and agencies are going to have to utilize. We have some incident reporting procedures, which is basically GNWT incident reporting procedures. We have occupational health and safety orientation for workers. We have occupational health and safety orientation for contractors. I have already mentioned the health and safety education and training programs. We have the template, the terms of reference that can be used by individual occupational health and

safety committees within individual departments. We have guidelines for workplace inspections. We have guidelines for incident investigations. We have guidelines for safety and toolbox meetings. We have guidelines for developing emergency response plans. We have guidelines for personal protective equipment. These are all things that are available to departments to help them prevent injury in the workplace.

As I have indicated, we do have work to do. We have to continue to push at the departments to utilize some of the tools that are available to them to promote safe and healthy workplaces. I believe we are seeing some results. Our claims history for 2012 is noticeably down from previous years.

I do applaud the Minister and the department for giving this laundry list of tools. I appreciate that we have that today. The question is, what have we done differently or new to adapt to the same terminology that WSCC has with all other companies and businesses throughout the Northwest Territories? If we’re going to be doing the repeat of the same programs and expecting different results with WSCC, my concern is that it is a dangerous precedent that we are moving down.

I would rather see us look at what are the criteria the WSCC is looking for from this government. Are we aligning our strategy, are we aligning our tools to meet their criteria, having made changes, recommendations and policy renewal to adapt our ability to get off this claims penalty list, and to be more in line with every other company and every other business that has to follow the same rules? Are we doing anything to adapt to the WSCC mandate? Thank you.

Madam Chair, it is no secret we are behind the eight ball on some of this stuff. This stuff that we are talking about, like the Occupational Health and Safety Policy that is being put in place by the GNWT, is new. If you look at the criteria for occupational health and safety policies put in by WSCC, there is a list of criteria.

We had a committee meeting some time ago, and I actually walked through each of those lists. We are actually beating, meeting and exceeding everything that they have identified needs to be in occupational health and safety. I am happy to re-share that list with the Member and committee, if they are interested, outlining what is going to be in our occupational health and safety. It is new. It is taking into consideration programs and successes from different organizations. Once again, I am happy to share that. As I indicated in committee, it meets and exceeds what the WSCC is actually asking for in Occupational Health and Safety Policy.

Madam Chair, if it meets and exceeds WSCC policies, then hopefully we won’t see the penalties that we have before us and a lot of the so-called charges to which have amounted

substantially. Again, I wish the department well this year and hopefully we can mitigate some of those costs.

I am going to stay on the same page and ask another question. This has to do with an initiative and program that was established in 2011-12. The Minister made reference to it earlier, called the Associate Director/Superintendent Program, which was aimed to increase the number of Aboriginal employees in senior management.

Can the Minister give us a brief overview how successful has this been? Has this been reflected in the estimates that we see before us?

I am just wondering, Mr. Dolynny, if that wouldn’t be under management and recruitment services. I’ll allow the Minister to respond if he wishes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just going back to the WSCC claims, as I have indicated, we are putting stuff in now; we are trying to address the problem. Some of the stuff is going to take a bit of time to work through. As with any new program, there is bound to be some growing pains, but we have already seen a decrease in 2012. We know there is probably going to be a penalty coming from that. We just expect it to be much smaller, which shows that we have started to make progress. More progress is needed. More diligence is needed. We continue to work closely with the departments so they implement the policies that are in place. We expect to see some better results over time.

I don’t want anybody to have the illusion that the GNWT is an unsafe place. The Member mentioned it earlier; the WSCC has a target. It is not an average. I think it was said that it was an average before and it’s not an average. A target of 2.4 or less loss time claims per 100.

We work really hard to promote a safe workplace. Right now our average is 1.8. I think we had 80-some claims last year that were time loss, but our average is 1.8 time loss claims per 100. We are not an unsafe workplace. We had some challenging worksites where we are having some poor results. That will be Justice, Stanton and Beaufort-Delta. But overall, I wouldn’t say that we are an unsafe workplace. I think that is important to support our employees out there that are working in safe environments where they are not getting injured.

With respect to the Associate Director/Superintendent Program, for 2013-14 we should be advertised in March and April. Going back to your initial intake, the first two graduates have completed the program and have actually taken on full responsibility for the positions they are being developed for. One is in the Deh Cho Health and Social Services Authority and the other is a MACA superintendent in the South Slave. As we

move forward and individuals complete the program and are placed, I am happy to provide those statistics to the committee.

Thank you, Minister. Your time is up, Mr. Dolynny. I will allow you a further question. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It is just going to be a clarification question. The Minister mentions a number of 1.8 claims per 100 and the average of 2.4. Can the Minister and the department provide the statistical backup in terms of how that number was calculated, given the information and how the details around that where they came up with that 1.8? Thank you.

Madam Chair, I can get that information. The 2.42 comes directly from the website and it is a 2012 target, and our 1.8 claims per 100 is based on the number of employees we have. As far as how it is actually calculated, I will get the detail to the Member later.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. We are on page 3-13, Human Resources, activity summary, directorate, operations expenditure summary, $625,000.

Thank you, committee. We will move on to page 3-14, Human Resources, information item, directorate, active positions. Any questions?

Thank you, committee. We will move on to page 3-17, Human Resources, activity summary, Human Resource Strategy and Policy, operations expenditure summary, $6.774 million. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Since last year there has been some shift scheduling software that has been added to the fold. This rolled out, I believe, in March of 2012. PeopleSoft, I believe, is the terminology that is being used at the department.

Can the department give us an idea, has this helped with the mitigation of overtime and with the help of calculations of time off in lieu?

Thanks, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s currently being implemented at Stanton and we are experiencing some growing pains with the program, trying to make it effective and work properly at Stanton. It’s going to take a little bit more time before we can come back with an analysis on the benefits and the effects of this particular tool.

That’s, I guess, promising. I’m hoping to see some savings in the overtime area.

For all the GNWT, time efficiency is what we’re looking for.

In previous information and in the vein of HR strategy involving information systems, there was supposed to be an ePerformance project that was supposed to be completed in this fiscal year. Can the Minister indicate to me if this ePerformance project is one schedule to be completed in this fiscal year? Thank you.

I don’t think that’s correct. The program was intended to start in ’12-13 and straddle into ’13-14. That was capital that we did in October for the upcoming fiscal year, not the current fiscal year.

Thank you. Mr. Dolynny, anything further? Thanks, Mr. Dolynny. We are on page 3-17, Human Resources, activity summary, operations expenditure summary, $6.774 million. Are we agreed?

Thank you, committee. Page 3-18, Human Resources, information item, Human Resource Strategy and Policy, active positions. Any questions?