Thank you. Committee, we’ll move on to page 3-21, Human Resources, activity summary, management and recruitment services, operations expenditure summary, $4.056 million. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to follow up a little bit here. MLAs, of course, are fearless when it comes to telling people how to do their jobs.

I’m just wondering, in terms of recruitment, it’s often a tough experience for somebody going into a community where the culture might be quite different for them, and they don’t know anybody and so on. It’s obviously challenging. What do we do in terms of helping them with housing, helping get their kids enrolled, maybe checking in with them one month after they get there and another three months later to see what their issues are in the community? Is there a role for HR here? I realize this would all take some commitment, but I’m just wondering, are we exploring those opportunities to help people and support our recruitment services for communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Right now that’s something that our client service officers do, actually, through the hiring process. When individuals come in, we try to focus and guide them to the community leadership, who can answer some of those questions; you know, identify housing that may be available. Could more

be done? Probably. I would say yes. But right now our client service officers are working with communities and individuals to get them the information they need to find the resources they desire.

I appreciate the Minister’s comments there. I don’t have anything specific here, but I imagine the Minister knows what I’m talking about and could try and get his finger on the pulse when he’s in communities, or his staff are in communities and so on. So it might be interesting to develop a bit of a sense there and see if there’s an opportunity for helping out in that front and letting us know what his impressions are. Thank you.

To some degree, some of the employing departments are doing that, where the people are going to work, their employer, their supervisor, are introducing them in communities.

We do have some orientation programs that are available as well. But I’ll certainly ask that question. I’ll have my department talk to some regional staff about what they think is necessary. In Yellowknife we’ve had a group approach us who is interested in doing kind of a Welcome Wagon program to introduce people to the community. I think that might be kind of what you’re referring to but in the community sense. It’s something I’d like to learn a little bit more about and have some more conversation. I’ll direct the department to have some conversations in that area.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. Bromley, anything further?

Nothing further. I don’t seem to know what employees’ experiences and issues are, but the Minister can probably find that out fairly easily and then focus on those areas. But nothing further. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. We’re on page 3-21, Human Resources, activity summary, management and recruitment services, operations expenditure summary, $4.56 million. Are we agreed?

Thank you. Committee, we’ll move to page 3-22, Human Resources, information item, management and recruitment services, active positions. Any questions?

Thank you, committee. We move to page 3-25, Human Resources, activity summary, corporate human resources, operations expenditure summary, $9.163 million.

Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Is this the activity within which the WSCC is controlled? Would workplace safety with WSCC be considered in this activity?

Mr. Bromley, I’ll go to Minister Abernethy for clarification on that question.

Yes, Madam Chair, this is the section that we work on some of the policies and try to encourage the departments to utilize the policies that have been developed.

On the workplace safety aspect, I know we’ve got the new policy. The Minister mentioned we’ve got occupational health and safety committees popping up all over the place. I missed whether we heard is it a requirement. Is it every department must have one, every division must have one? I’m wondering what the requirement is there and what the monitoring is revealing in terms of getting those established. Do they all need to be established within a year, and are we 50 percent there? What’s our status on that front? Thank you.

They are a requirement. Not every worksite has one yet or department has them yet, but they are required to have them and they are getting established.

There’s some overlap. We’ve got a department requirement but we’ve also got a worksite requirement. So there is some overlap with some of those committees. It gets a little complicated at times. But like I said, we’ve got the terms of reference that the individual committees can use to help develop their own and expedite that process. So we continue to work at the deputy head level with the departments, encouraging them to get this done, and at the ministerial level as well.

Thanks for that information. I assume that has to be done, sort of, this fiscal year. I don’t know where we’re at in terms of getting all the entities up and running of the number that we have, but I’d appreciate that information. So any more details before I ask my last one here. Thanks.

Madam Chair, in October/November we pulled reps from across the Territories together to give them some training on what expectations there are, providing them with the terms of reference so they can go back to their committees and do some work.

As far as which departments don’t have them yet, I don’t know off the top of my head. But I’d be happy to go back and see if we can get that information and provide it to you in committee.

Thanks again for that information. I guess I would at least ask that the Minister check in with Justice and Health and Social Services, and make sure they’re up and running right away.

There’s been a great concern about WSCC rates. Again, I don’t have the terminology; the Minister will know what I’m talking about. There are significant increases for our businesses and that’s a big concern. I’m wondering, what can we do about that. What is the Minister doing about that?

I have collected some information. I realize WSCC has spent a lot of money on legal fees and so on. I know with the Giant thing, it was in the tens of millions of dollars. I just want to know that what we’re charging our businesses is really related to what they are experiencing or engendering in terms of cost. It’s not fair to ask them to shoulder costs that should be shouldered by somebody else. If they are GNWT costs, we shouldn’t be asking our businesses to pay for those costs, obviously.

So what’s the situation from the Minister’s perspective and what are we doing to address this rather alarming jump in personnel rates that have been charged by WSCC? Thank you.

Honestly, Madam Chair, the Member is asking the wrong Minister. The Member should be asking the Minister responsible for the WSCC. We, as an employer, share the same concerns. Last year our rate was, I think, 67 cents or something like that. This year we’ve had a significant increase in the rate as all employers have. Last year, as an example, we paid $2.3 million in premiums is really what they are. They are really like an insurance premium. We paid $2.3 million in insurance premium. The WSCC paid out $1.1 million in claims and on top of that we paid just over $600,000 in penalties. So in total we paid almost $3 million and there’s $1 million that went back to compensate our employees.

The WSCC, from my understanding – once again it might be best to ask the Minister responsible for the WSCC – has a process where they review their bank accounts and they have actuaries come in and they dig through their books to see what kind of money they have available, and based on what’s in their account, they determine a rate schedule/rate fee. We, as with all employers, don’t really have input into the rate schedules or the rate fees. We can say we think it’s too high, as I think many Members and many businesses have said, but as far as having an ability to impact their rates, we don’t have a voice there. At the end of the day, we pay our premiums, they’re like insurance premiums, and we had a million dollars' worth of benefit out of $3 million in fees and penalties.