Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to begin by congratulating the Department of Human Resources for the GNWT being named Top 100 Employer in Canada. I think that’s hard work from the department throughout, I guess, but HR being responsible and one of the main leads on that.

My other opening comments would be about the job creation. The Minister talked about decentralization and devolution. We’ve also created a bunch of jobs this year. My indication is 56. I am just wondering what the process is from HR’s perspective on what different departments have to do when they create a new position. Are there justifications that are required? Regarding decentralization, is their focus on why this is being located in certain locations?

The other area that I would like the Minister to discuss a little bit is with the GNWT we are getting larger and larger and we’re seeing vacancies in positions. Those numbers seem to be growing as well. There is always a constant number of jobs/positions that we cannot fill. Whether we are in the transition or in the middle of filling them and some positions maybe have questions on whether we can actually fill them year after year. What is the Minister doing to reduce those numbers in filling these empty positions?

The other area the Minister discussed was whistleblowing. I’m just looking for more clarification and definition on whistleblowing. What is the actual definition of whistleblowing? I understand the concept of it, but are we talking about territorial employees being able to complain about their bosses or complaining about other departments? Typically now, that’s kind of frowned upon. I am just looking for more clarification.

Those are my main concerns right now, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. I will go to Minister Abernethy for his response.

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.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Mr. Bouchard.

That’s good. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I welcome the Minister and the delegation here today. In line with my comments from the Member of Hay River North, I too want to congratulate the department on a job well done being named one of the top 100 employers in Canada. That’s quite an accolade and sometimes I think we forget to say some good things about what’s happening in government, so congratulations.

Keeping in line with what was said, and you might hear a common theme here a little bit, but we know we are faced with a lot of net out-migration of employees. This is nothing new. We have, at times, a lot of complexity in our public service jobs, and as indicated by the Minister, we have a retiring population to deal with. All three of those pillars, I think, are putting a strain on our current system to fill positions now.

We’ve heard various numbers of vacancies currently, and I know this is always a moving target, Madam Chair, but I believe the number – correct me if I’m wrong – about 360 job openings today in the NWT. That tells me, and I think it tells many people in this Assembly, that our NWT labour market really cannot meet the demand to fill the positions we have. So when we add more positions in a budget like we have before us, I think we may be adding more insult to injury moving forward.

I know there was some ITI funded initiatives about Come Make Your Mark to promote the NWT. The Minister may want to talk a bit about whether this was a successful endeavour, but more so what did it cost taxpayers. Again, these are issues that we need to look at.

Following that, we’ve talked about all these types of initiatives to bring people to the Northwest Territories. A lot of those are referred to targeted scholarships, bursary programs, specific placement programs, remissable loans, return of bursaries and return of service agreements. These are all catch phrases, but these are also very unique tools. I am curious as to what amount of tool use is being used by the department to fill the current vacancies that we have before us. So I would appreciate the Minister talking about that.

Although I indicated that I was congratulating the department for a job well done being top 100 employees, if one has to look at the recent employee engagement satisfaction survey by our

service sector, it was interesting to see some of the trends in that employee survey. What I mean by trends is I look at top box score. These are your top percent responses in terms of completely being satisfied. When one looks at the results, Madam Chair, it’s very clear that although we are doing relatively well, those numbers or top box scores have now been slipping from one year to the next. In the eyes of an employer, whether it’s in government or in industry, these would be areas you would want to drive some concern in terms of what you are using to mitigate the perception out there.

I would be remiss if I didn’t talk a little bit about safety. The Minister is very much aware that I have been somewhat critical in our safety programs and the fact that this government has been fined and double fined in the last two years to the tune of about almost $750,000 in fines and double fines. I have some grave concerns about what we are doing to improve the safety profile. Again, there is only one mention here in the opening address that indicates rigorous occupational health and safety strategies continue to be critical in order to minimize the risk of our staff being injured on the job. Given the fact that this department has been bestowed with such a large penalty, I am curious and very dismayed that it only had one line entry in the opening comments and very little to show in the budget as to what they are truly doing for occupational health and safety in order to get on the positive side of WSCC so that our claims growth, our injuries, as well as our penalties are much more in line.

I know the Minister has made comments in the House about the injuries per 100 being at a value, I believe, of 1.8 of a value and the average in the Territories is 2.4. However, I crunch these numbers, and although this seems to be the hallmark or benchmark for health and safety for the department, I’m still very perplexed as to how these numbers are being calculated because my math does not add up to this 1.8. I may want to ask the Minister to comment on that as well.

I do have a lot more specifics that I’d like to do when we get into detail, so I will leave that for now. I did put a couple of questions on there for the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. I’ll go to Mr. Abernethy for a response.

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.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Mr. Dolynny, your time is up. Next on the list is Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to let the Minister and his staff know that I will probably be speaking to some of the topics that have already been discussed, so don’t feel obligated to answer them again. I just want to show my support for certain initiatives, as well as my concern in some areas. If you feel obligated that you need to answer again and reiterate some of your points, feel free to, but with respect to time and moving forward, you can just try to move on here.

What I’m glad to see in here is under the 20/20 program that the Minister mentions the recruitment, development and advancement of Aboriginal employees, but it’s not just the Aboriginal employees. What we discussed last time was northern indigenous. It’s people who have lived here in the North and are indigenous to the North, and working to advance them as well.

I didn’t get a chance to go to my second set of questions during question period earlier today, but just to touch on some of the challenges that we do have in the education system that sometimes, as a result, we find some of our people from the Northwest Territories in low-level positions within the government. Some of these people that are in these positions, sometimes are also long-serving employees and we know this because we give out

the awards that are for 20 years, 25 years, yet there hasn’t been any advancement in there for them.

I’m really glad to see that you want to work on the development and advancement of these positions. That goes to on-the-job training, specifically for these long-term employees. How do we do that? How do we take people from administrative roles and start getting them into positions where they can start being programmers, working in programs and services areas, and slowly build them up?

As you know and see through your department, we are also a very transient jurisdiction where we get people coming up two years or three years at a time, get to know and understand the culture, area, demographics of where they’re doing their work, and then they leave. Yet you’re still getting some of these employees who are sticking around and continuing to see people come and go out of the office and those are the employees that I feel we need to target. Mr. Dolynny makes a good point of finding innovative and unique ways to adjust these. This is what we have to do. We have to look at ways we can start building our workforce with people here in the Northwest Territories, especially our long-term residents.

What I was also very glad to see was the work and advancement of the whistleblower legislation. Speaking to people back home, and myself working in the public service area, knowing some of the discrepancies, some of the job acts within government and how things are done, and policy, and how do we make those changes so that we can make people thrive and go and develop not only in the public service sector but in all of the Northwest Territories. There are some restrictions that allow certain Members that work for the department, I know there is the conflict of interest, but because we have such a small population, it does restrict some of our employees from going out and volunteering, being part of an NGO, and we have to learn how we can support those, because we do have a lot of really great individuals in the Northwest Territories who cannot be restricted to their workload and could be doing really good work for people of the Northwest Territories as well as their departments.

Speaking earlier in terms of partnerships and working with departments and hearing some of the stats of all the vacancies that we have throughout the Northwest Territories, that says to me that this department needs to work. I mentioned this earlier during my question period to the Minister of Education. He has a very big responsibility and important role here to start training and educating our youth and fixing the education system so that we can start filling these vacant roles with Northerners, with Aboriginals, and making sure that we have a great representation right across the board. With all the vacancies that the Minister had

mentioned earlier, that just tells me that this department needs to work closely with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to see how we can start training in those areas that we see need positions filled.

I was talking to my colleague over here earlier about the last time we had Human Resources before us. I was just new to the government, about three months in, 15 months, a lot of education, knowledge, listening to what’s needed, listening to the constituents, seeing where the areas need addressing. What I say before you is just possibly some, like I said, innovative and unique ways that we can start getting our people educated and into the jobs. Like I also mentioned earlier, the long-term employees in the low-level jobs, we have to find ways where we can advance them so they can be some of our leaders in the communities and the regions as well. Keeping on going here.

What I was really surprised to see, as well, in just making reference to the budget dialogue that was taken on the road, there wasn’t very much mentioned in terms of human resources or retention and recruitment. I’m not sure if the Minister would like to maybe ask another Minister around the House if that was even a case brought up during these budget dialogues and whether more money needed to be put towards recruitment and retention of either nurses, doctors, educators. That is a possibility, but in the budget dialogue when I reviewed it and read the report, I didn’t see anything in terms of human resources, which just listening today, you heard a lot of concerns.

The Regional Recruitment Strategy, I’m glad to see that is on the horizon. It really needs to be supported. When that strategy comes to the table and to the committee, it needs to be implemented. Dollars need to go so that we can start getting our regional centres and our smaller communities up to par with what some of our bigger centres have. In terms of that, as I mentioned earlier in my Member’s statement where I said if you fail to plan, plan to fail. As a result of that, we have to start looking at our communities. Why are people going into communities?

Early childhood development, we need those programs. We need better education systems in our schools. We need schools. We need nurses. We need policing. We need the core and essential services in our communities to provide people getting into those employment rates.

When I listened to our Beaufort-Delta Leadership Council, there was a lot of really good discussions on how they felt that the government’s departments should work more collaboratively together, working together to come up with the best plans and strategies so that when we need those jobs, we need those services in the communities, they are there and that Human Resources isn’t trying to get

people in the communities when families don’t want to go there because there are no early childhood development services. Those are some challenges, barriers that we are facing. As Cabinet and as the Minister that is responsible for getting people in those positions, those are some things that need to be addressed. How do we do it? It is a tough job. I am sure we will find ways and strategies.

Before I continue, I just want to commend the continued support for members of the public service in all of the benefits and packages and working with UNW to reach those agreements and supporting the people that are in there. As a Member who has worked a very long service in different departments, and seeing some of the areas that need working, and being able to come in here and try to make that change and try to offer my expertise and my knowledge, I think that that offers a lot. I do know that employees within the GNWT system, as well as the managers, superintendents, supervisors, need the support from this House to ensure that we provide the best services and programs and the best packages so that we can retain our staff, and also make sure that our staff is up to par and that our communities are also all thriving. I mentioned a whole bunch of different things there.

If anything, I’d like to see more effort into the advancement and development of our employees, especially the ones that have been in the workforce for a long time and who continue to be in low-level jobs, and also seeing the development of the whistleblower legislation as we move forward, because that is really going to give us insight into what is happening to the departments and within our government system and making our government more effective as we move forward. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Abernethy.

Madam Chair, I would like to thank the Member for his comments. I agree; we have a lot of work. We have a lot of things we need to think about as we move forward to try and engage both residents to convince them or encourage them to consider the GNWT as an employer. A significant amount of work has been done or needs to be done and is being done.

I have been in the House for five years. In those five years I have talked an awful lot about on-the-job training. When I sat on that side of the House, I must have made several dozen statements about training on the job and the value that it provides. This government has had fantastic success in the past, but as budget cuts have come through our history, some of that training on the job has gone away.

We do have the Assistant Director/Regional Superintendent Program is one of our on-the-job training programs. Some departments have some

specific programs on-the-job training as well. The Department of Justice has our Corrections Training Program, which is an on-the-job training program. Health and Social Services has things like the Community Health Nurse Development Program, which is an on-the-job training program. So they do exist in pockets.

As we move forward with the Regional Recruitment Strategy, we are going to be following two streams. Much of this is going to be informed through the research and analysis which will be done, but also advice from the Aboriginal Employees Advisory Committee. We are going to be following two streams, and one is trying to deal with non-regulated professions. What we are looking at here is exactly what you are talking about, which is one year on-the-job training programs and mentorships. We are talking about double filling positions to give individuals an opportunity to learn the skills or consolidate learning that they already have but haven’t been able to put into practice. This is a great opportunity. We have past success in this area and we think that we can make some significant success. That is for non-regulated jobs.

For regulated or trades jobs, we are also looking for on-the-job training, but it would be longer. A trade often takes two, three or four years to complete, so it’s going to have to be longer on-the-job training programs. We are going to have to work closely with Education, Culture and Employment as they are trying to address those. Then we can also look at our Community Health Nurse Development Program as a great program that transitions recent graduates or nurses without community experience, gives them the skills they need to work in a community health setting.

We are excited about the work we are doing on the Regional Recruitment Strategy. I am excited to bring that forward to committee. It’s still a little bit of time off, but it will be in front of committee. We will have discussions prior to business planning process so that the findings and the recommendations can be dealt with through the business planning process. I am happy to hear you say that you would support some money. I don’t know if Minister Miltenberger is looking, but obviously we are going to need some money on that. But we’ll have those discussions later.

---Interjection

He said yes.

As a Regular Member, and as a citizen, and as an employee who used to be in the public service, I have been a supporter of whistleblower legislation for a long time. I have been trying to push it forward. This House has supported that initiative. We agreed to move forward with the Union of Northern Workers, who was a good partner. We worked hand in hand on the Safe Disclosure Policy that we have in place and it is going to form the

background of the legislation. We want to implement the safe disclosure April 1

st . I have to

bring it to committee first for their review, but that’s the target that we are setting. We would like to have it run for a period of time so that we can do an analysis to make sure it is working the way that the union and the GNWT hope and intend. From there, that will give us more information to make sure that any legislation we put forward is going to work. It will be done in the life of this Assembly. We have a plan and we will bring it forward for discussion.

I thank the Member for his comments. If he has any other questions, I’m happy to answer them in detail.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Next on the list is Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I know that many Members have raised many different issues, but I think I will take a different approach this time. I am going to try to be specific.

I think within the last several years, I have had constituents approach me, and also other residents of the Northwest Territories, and their P1 and P2 residents are having difficulties getting through the new HR process because HR is handling all of the hiring for all of the different departments. They list numerous issues about applying for jobs, doing the test, and as well as the HR not disclosing to the applicants what their test results were. It kind of creates a difficulty because the client doesn’t know where they could excel. At the same time, it also raises the spectre of unfair assessments for people at getting jobs, because they will say oh, their friends got the jobs.

When you are an applicant, you can’t dispute something that you cannot see. Often, they are getting frustrated and they’re saying P1, P2 and non-residents are getting our jobs. In fact, I think earlier in our session last week, I posed a written question. I wanted to see how many P1 and P2 applicants are getting hired over the last couple of years. That might be a little bit of work for the department, but they have those stats and I want to see those stats too. So that’s my initial concern, is how come my constituents and how come residents that are P1 and P2 are failing to get into the jobs that they’re applying for. Granted, while there may be some not actually qualified, I’m sure there’s some that are qualified and should be working there, and that’s still the case in our smallest communities, Madam Chair, where the outsiders come to the communities and they are given those jobs that my constituents never got a chance to apply for. When that happens, since they’re already there, they’re training for three to four months and they know the system and when the job gets tendered out or reapplied, the person that’s been there on a temporary basis has a better chance than often those on the outside.

So as an MLA, in my role I’m the appeal guy and they’re coming to me and saying, well, why is that person getting that job. I’ve been applying on it, I’ve been going on the website, I’ve been keeping an eye on this job, that’s something that I really want to do, I know I can do it, but they’re not given a chance. So I just wanted to see if the Minister can focus his response specifically around that area. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Department of Human Resources centralized a number of years ago, but with that centralization, the staffing procedures and rules that the GNWT is bound to did not change. Those are consistent prior to decentralization. What may have been happening prior to that is some departments may not have been applying the rules as intended.

I hear the Member and I’ve seen many of the issues come across my desk and I do see a significant amount of frustration out there, which is one of the conversations I had with the Aboriginal Employees Advisory Committee. What is happening within our system that either discourages people from applying or eliminates people who probably could do the job? What is it in our system that is causing that? I’m looking forward to some advice and recommendations from the Aboriginal Employees Advisory Committee on how we can overcome that barrier, but we’re also, and I’ve talked about it already, putting in the Regional Recruitment Strategy which is going to focus on those two sectors, non-regulated and regulated jobs. For the non-regulated, training on the job, bringing people in who appear to be on the right track, but maybe lack something in their resume or maybe didn’t score exactly high enough on their interview to double fill and give them an opportunity to train on the job. Those are the types of things we’re talking about and I think that will address some of the issues that these individuals have.

An interesting statistic for people to consider is since 1999, the GNWT workforce has grown by about 36.9 percent. The growth in Aboriginal employees in that same time within the public service is 39.6. So where we have the workforce growing like this, we have the Aboriginal representation growing at a faster rate. We haven’t got where we need to be, we’re not even close. I think we’re at about 37 percent right now and the population is 50. So a significant amount of work is still needing to be done, but we are seeing some successes in the things we are doing. We have to capitalize on our successes. To you and to all Members and to residents-at-large, if you’re applying on a job and you feel that something was wrong in the process, you have the right to appeal. I encourage employees to appeal when, in fact, they

feel that something was done incorrectly in the process or that they were unsuccessful for a particular reason. So I encourage people to appeal because that helps us learn where there may be gaps in the system as well.

So we do have work to do. I hear you, and I think we’re making progress, and I look forward to continual recommendations and suggestions from committee, from the Aboriginal Employees Advisory Committee and from the public-at-large to help us overcome some of these challenges that we’re facing.

Just in closing, I’ve been strongly advocating within the department and directing the department to tell candidates, you know, come to us and we’ll give you feedback on what you could do better, where you might have gone off the rails a little bit during this competition. We want to help people learn from the staffing process, we want to give them advice on how they can better the process, and we’re also going to be looking at the possibilities of providing training outside of Yellowknife to individuals on how the process works. Sometimes I fear that it might just be a simple lack of understanding about how a competition works within the Government of the Northwest Territories and I think we can do a better job of helping people understand that process in the Northwest Territories on behalf of the GNWT.

Just with that whole aspect of scoring, I think that’s where residents are getting frustrated. Even though they feel that the tests are subjective and not transparent at all because they’re appealing it and the managers are sitting there and withholding information and not showing them how they scored. How can you defend yourself if you’re not allowed to see that? I guess that’s happened time and time again, and some applicants and some constituents have applied, like, 10 or 15 times with the same result. So, of course, they’ll get frustrated and I do want to see this Aboriginal representative workforce increase to our goal, which is well above the 30 percent mark, throughout our whole departments.

Just in response, as well, maybe the Minister can briefly tell me about the appeal system, because the appeal system, too, is just as frustrating to the applicants applying. The ones that are screened out don’t even get a chance to apply and find out why they weren’t able to get to the interview stage, and those that do get interviewed and fail it and fail and fail the interview, it’s like it’s a blow to their self-esteem, as well because they’ve failed. One resident was telling me about 12 times in a row. So that’s kind of frustrating. I don’t know if the Minister has any thought on that or if the department is going to try to revamp that type of appeal with the system that we currently have. Thank you.

I hear you on the scoring frustration. I believe we’ve already had

conversations on this and I understand the frustration that some of your constituents are having, and not just your constituents, but others across the Northwest Territories, and the barriers that our system may be actually putting in place unknowingly, which I’m going to go back to my comments on the Aboriginal Employees Advisory Committee. We’re really looking forward to some suggestions they have on the process. I mean what barriers we may be unknowingly be putting in and how we can improve those. So we look forward to their input.

Once again, please, anytime you have an opportunity or a constituent who comes to you with concerns, have them talk to HR, have them talk to some of the HR practitioners about what happened in the process and where they went off the rails and why they were not successful.

I did already talk a little bit about How to Apply for GNWT Jobs. That’s a program that we’re going to be piloting. I think we’re starting with piloting that in Fort Smith, but as we move forward, we’d like to see that program get out across the Northwest Territories and that’s for non-GNWT employees. That’s for people who want to become an employee of the Government of the Northwest Territories. So I take all your points, I hear you clearly. The department is listening and taking notes. We have some work to do and we will try to find the solutions to reduce any barriers that may exist for people across the Northwest Territories to apply on jobs.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Moving on with questions, I have Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. A few quick comments here. I want to start off by adding my voice to the congratulations to the Minister and all his staff for the Canada’s Top 100 Employers Award. That’s really great.

So, briefly, I have similar concerns to what the Minister has heard on whistleblower, and I’m looking forward to that legislation being brought forward. Succession planning, I’m very interested in that. I’m finding myself sort of in that category here. What’s been done to date we’ve been talking about since the 16

th Assembly. How do we change the

statistics would be good to know.

We’ve talked a lot about decentralization, devolution and regional recruitment in terms of the HR challenges. I guess I’d like to refer the Minister to my colleague Mr. Moses’ statement today. I was very impressed with that. That’s the fundamental thing we’re dealing with here. It’s no surprise to the Minister the information we’ve received, that even local, long-term community residents are moving to Yellowknife for the additional services and extraordinary benefits they can get here. The challenge is clear and it will take a very comprehensive approach. I would be interested in

hearing, you know, that the Minister recognizes that and how he’s working with his colleagues to address that and refer to that. Put it on the wall in front of your desk, that checklist that Mr. Moses has supplied.

Greening the workplace, something that comes up regularly when I speak on HR. Some great promises have been made but, again, I just still see the Legislative Assembly and ENR as the ones that are committed to this sort of thing. Looking for some leadership and real change there. Evidence can be seen in the failure to use double sided in departments except for, like I say, those two in the documents I see unless they’re coming to the Ledge black and white copies. Heating with renewable energy, such as the Ledge and so on. Composting. These sorts of things that can engage our younger people who recognize the importance of the environment.

Also, on the safety front, I think the Minister has done a good job of stating the situation where we’ve been recently, where we are now. There’s one clear barrier I haven’t heard expressly stated, explicitly stated. I will be asking questions about that when we get into the details. I’m going to leave it at that just to move on to the details.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just to complicate things, when we move forward with the union on what was often referred to as whistleblower legislation or whistleblower policy, through discussions with the UNW and how we were moving forward, it’s changed its name. It’s now a Safe Disclosure Policy. It will be safe disclosure legislation. When I’m referring to Safe Disclosure Policy and legislation, it’s really the evolution of the whistleblower discussions that we’ve been having.

As I’ve indicated, I’m really excited to bring this good work that the union and department have done in collaboration, and both groups are very happy with the product. I’m looking forward to bringing that to committee for some discussion and implementing that on April 1

st . Like I said, we’re

going to let that run for a little while to see how it works, to see what the challenges are, to see what parts are good and what parts might need a little bit of tweaking before we move forward with the legislation, but I and my Ministerial colleagues are committed to getting this legislation done during the life of this government and I will continue to push that through.

Succession planning, there are experts within the Department of Human Resources who can provide advice and recommendations to individual departments, as well as individuals who are looking at moving through the public service, but one thing does need to happen from that. We need individual

HR plans from individual departments, boards and agencies. They need to look at their operations and figure out what they’re going to do. Most departments, if not all departments, are currently working on human resource plans and most human resource plans actually include some succession planning information. Hopefully, we’ll see more human resource plans individualized to departments come as we move forward.

As far as changing the statistics, it’s the planning and recognition of the challenges that we face that’s going to help us change the statistics over time. The Regional Recruitment Strategy is going to help us address some of our shortfalls in the communities.

I was clearly listening to MLA Moses, as I’m sure my colleagues were, and I’m pretty sure I said it, as well, that I agree with pretty much everything the Member was saying. We have a lot of work to do and it’s not going to be easy by any stretch of the imagination. I look forward to the partnership with the Social Envelope Committee, with Government Operations committee, with EDI committee as we move forward trying to recognize and identify and find solutions to some of the challenges that we face.

Greening the workplace, the Member is not wrong. ENR is taking the lead charge on this and we are working with departments to facilitate creation of a green committee, but for more detail I am going to go to the deputy to talk about some of the specifics that are out there. ENR is taking the lead with government staff on many of those initiatives.