Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Committee would like to deal with Tabled Document 22-17(5). We’d like to continue with the Department of Human Resources and, time permitting, Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations and the NWT Housing Corporation. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Is committee agreed?

Great. We’ll commence after a short break.

---SHORT RECESS

I’d like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. We have the Department of HR. I will go to the Minister of HR and see if he has any witnesses he’d like to bring into the House. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses into the Chamber.

For the record, if you could please introduce your guests to the House again today. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To my right is the deputy minister of Human Resources, Sheila Bassi-Kellett; and to my left is the director of policy, Michelle Beard.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Ms. Bassi-Kellett and Ms. Beard, welcome back to the House. Committee, we are on general comments, Department of HR. Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. If you recall, I was the last speaker on this matter, but I wanted to identify a concern that has been expressed to me on several occasions and that’s in regard to summer students. I understand with the facts before us that we’re trying to promote and advance opportunities for Northerners, and for First Nations in particular, to join the GNWT for jobs and career opportunities. It’s always been, I think, the wish and the encouragement as parents and as people of the North to promote education that’s of value in terms of bringing changes to the overall society.

So, given that, it’s been quite discouraging to see jobs that are concentrated in regional centres, or else in larger communities other than the small communities. I mean, I could cite at least one example of students that returned back to small communities, and of course, in small communities there are limited opportunities for employment, and if you do get a job, there are challenges that get in your way in terms of whether you have to pay rent because you’re living with your parents. That’s one example.

As a comment, if there’s anything that I could maybe leave the department with is if they are going to advance and make steps to ensure that we have opportunities for northern students and First Nations students to aspire to be GNWT employees, it’s got to start at the community level. For this year if we could aim to change the system so that at least there are ample job opportunities given to the students at the community level. I know it’s far away, now it’s February, we’re advancing pretty close to May when students return from their studies. I would like us to ensure that they take the steps of starting our career planning and providing opportunities for students so that eventually they become employees of the government. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. With that, we’ll go to Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the summer of 2013 the GNWT hired 280 students. The hiring of students is the same as the hiring of all GNWT employees using the Affirmative Action Policy, except that for the summer students we have better numbers than we do across the board for the permanent jobs. Over 50 percent of

the students hired in the summertime were priority 1 candidates.

Currently the system works where the departments and agencies determined where they wish to place the summer students and, in fact, not in the hands of the Department of Human Resources, but each of the departments will be asked to hire as many students as possible, trying to get up and around 300 students for the summer, depending on how much room there would be in our PY budget to hire summer students. So, often the process is that they will try to match the summer student with the studies that they are in school for as close as possible or with actually in the relevant subject and relevant field that the student is studying in the South.

I recognize that the Member’s issue has been brought up in the past and that we can, as a department, make contact with all of the departments, advising them that they should be looking equally at the jobs outside of the major centres as they do inside of the major centres and try to match some of these students in the smaller communities as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Committee, if I could just make

recommendations if we could maybe shorten our responses and our questions today so we can move the agenda a little bit quicker. Committee, again, we are in HR, we’re in general comments. Does committee agree that we can proceed with detail?

Thank you, committee. We will skip section 3.7 in your main estimates book as we conclude items for consideration in the future. With that, I’ll ask you to turn to page 3-8, information item, infrastructure investment summery. Any questions?

Seeing none, 3-9, information item, active position summary. Any questions? Mr. Menicoche.

Just in light of our discussion about vacant positions, perhaps I’d just ask the Minister specifically the first section there under regional allocations. How many of those are real positions, Mr. Chair? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The active position summary here is what is funded through this process, the main estimates process. So these positions go into the main estimates as positions that the department would need to fill. So all of these would be funded and hopefully all filled and that’s the intention today.

Thank you very much. So, just in terms of the 118 of the regional allocation, how many of them are currently filled?

Thank you. For that detail I would ask that the deputy minister provide the response.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Ms. Bassi-Kellett.

Thank you, Ms. Bassi-Kellett. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much. Okay, so out of the six positions, do they need to be filled and where exactly is the department, what jobs are they and does the department need those six or have they been flagged anywhere where they may be not needed? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister Beaulieu.

I’ll ask the deputy minister to respond to that.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Ms. Bassi-Kellett.

Thank you, Ms. Bassi-Kellett. Mr. Menicoche.

I noticed the increase of seven positions over last year, and it looks like all seven went to Yellowknife. Can the Minister explain why Yellowknife got seven more positions this coming year?

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister Beaulieu.

Five of the positions were devolution positions being added to a department. Human Resources provides, as the House knows, a service to all of the departments, and the increase of the positions as a result of devolution meant that we hired in strategic human resources a manager, a labour relations advisor, and three people in management and recruitment services, client service and two human resource officers. Those were five positions. Also, one position was transferred from the Department of Finance, financial shared services, as a senior financial planning budget analyst also here in Yellowknife, and then one position was created through internal reallocation of resources of corporate affairs.

There will definitely be an increase in the workload for Human Resources staff and headquarters, I guess. Why is there not an increase in the workload in the regions? Why are they all posted here? Also, because of increasing the workload for the need for devolution, are these positions being paid for from the devolution funds or are they all just new money from the government?

For further detail, I’ll ask the deputy minister.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Ms. Bassi-Kellett.

Thank you, Ms. Bassi-Kellett. Committee, we are on page 3-9, Human Resources, information item, active position summary. Any questions? Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to be sure, I’m not sure that this information was included, but in addition to these active positions, are there unreported inactive positions and if so and they’re not funded, is the intent to delete those so that we’re not having to continue to manage those empty and apparently nebulous positions?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As a government, we’re going through the process of responding to the overall vacancy positions, dormant positions and the positions that have been identified in the House. What we’re presenting here are the main estimates and the changes that we’re going from one main estimate to the other main estimate and not which PYs are being reported through PeopleSoft. What we are providing to the Members as the overall from the government was to indicate and respond to the questions of the dormant positions, positions to be filled, and then a full report that we are going to be responding to. I did not come with the detailed report here. Essentially, coming here with the main estimates and what we are requesting, but this is separate from the information that has been requested that we will respond to, I think, within the next day or two.

Thank you for that, Minister. If we have questions with the information that’s been provided by the department, is this confidential information or are we allowed to ask questions to clarify what the situation is?

I think it would be my preference or the department’s preference if we would. We have a meeting scheduled, I believe, for 7:30 tomorrow to talk about the report we have provided to the Members, and that we would answer the questions on that specific report that doesn’t really correlate with the business plan that we are presenting here today.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Moving on with questions on activity 3-9, I have Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess I’ll follow along with some of the questions that my colleagues have asked. I’d like to ask a question about the devolution positions and, I guess, the number of positions that were out in the regions and, I guess, the lack of support for HR in the regions. I mean, all the positions have been added to the headquarters. Did we not deem that Inuvik was getting a good quantity of these positions and probably going to need some assistance with some of those positions as well as multiple communities in the South Slave. Would there not have been some sort of advantage to putting an additional position into the South Slave and potentially Inuvik to assist with some of the HR demands that those people are going to see from devolution?

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will ask the deputy minister to respond to that specific question.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Ms. Bassi-Kellett.

Thank you, Ms. Bassi-Kellett. Mr. Bouchard.

I guess I’m struggling with that issue, especially on a day like today when I made a Member’s statement on decentralization and the plan that we have going forward. I guess there are quite a few jobs going out into the regions through devolution, and to add seven more to Yellowknife, I understand some of them were through devolution but a couple were actually through an option that we had. I guess this is a priority of the Assembly to do decentralization and I’d like us to consider that, I guess.

The other area of concern that I have, and it’s more of a question, I think, we talked about the details of the vacancies that we’ve been asking more and more information on. We’ve been getting more of that and we’re going to get more options to that.

The Minister indicated he didn’t want to comment on that, but I think we need to get some of that information sooner than later, because this is a budget issue. I understand that the department is gathering that information with all the different departments. But for the Department of HR not wanting to discuss that at this budget time, which we know this is a priority, I think we need to look at all those options. We need to look at where those positions are filled, especially the ones that are funded. We have some vacant positions that are funded and inactive. There are quite a few that we need to look at in this budget process before I think we can move forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. I’ll take that as more of a comment. I didn’t quite hear a question in there. With that, committee, we are on page 3-9, Human Resources, information item, active position summary. Any questions? Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Page 3-11, Human Resources, activity summary, directorate, operations expenditure summary, $3.817 million. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a question here with regards to the advertising strategy that the department has adopted within the last six months or so. I talked about this the other day and asked some questions of the Minister, but one of the things that concerns me particularly, and

I’d like to bring it up again, is this need for an e-mail address in order to apply for a job with the GNWT.

I’d like to know from the Minister, he’s mentioned that they’ve made some adjustments; they’ve changed a few things so that basically people will be able to apply. So, I have no computer, I don’t have access to a computer. How am I going to apply for a job with GNWT if I don’t have an e-mail address? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If an individual is seeking employment and finds a job on-line that they would be interested in and they don’t have a computer and can’t do the eRecruit, they are still welcome to take their resume in, a hard copy, to anyone in the regional service centres that we have or also into headquarters here in Yellowknife.

Thanks to the Minister. I’ll use an example, which may be a little exaggerated, but if I’m in Colville Lake and there is no regional centre in my community, what do I do then? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. With that, we’ll go to Ms. Bassi-Kellett.

Thanks to Ms. Bassi-Kellett. Just a comment, and I haven’t studied the ads that have come out, but I don’t know the option to do hard copy of resumes and apply that way is really out there as an option. I think the focus of the ads that I have seen is all on-line via computer.

I guess I would just ask the department to think about their advertising. I appreciate that they’re doing what they can to try and get jobs around in communities where there is no access or where people likely don’t have access to computers and so on, but I don’t know that that’s well publicized. I would just encourage the department to think about their strategy and maybe put a little bit more effort into telling those people that don’t have access to on-line and computers that they can still apply for jobs and how they can do it. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. I’ll treat that as a comment. Committee, we’re on 3-11, activity summary, directorate, operations expenditure summary, $3.817 million. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Committee, 3-12, information item, directorate, active positions. Any questions? Seeing none, I’d like to move to 3-15, activity summary, management and recruitment services, operations expenditure summary, $4.337 million. Is committee agreed? Ms. Bisaro.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I have a question here and I couldn’t find a reference, but some time ago I wrote myself a note and I put “client service centre versus regional service centre.” The two centres have been referenced, I don’t know if it was in the Minister’s opening remarks or elsewhere, but I’m struggling to understand what the difference is between a client service centre and a regional service centre. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll just have the deputy minister explain the difference between the two quickly.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Ms. Bassi-Kellett.

Thank you, Ms. Bassi-Kellett. Ms. Bisaro.

Thanks for the clarification. Maybe the term should be regional client service centre, so one would understand that they’re the same.

I wanted to just emphasize – I don’t know if I’ve made this comment, but I know it has been made to the department – in terms of regional recruitment, I think it is the intent of the department to try to mentor some people in the regions and fill vacant positions, and also for people who are retiring, to make sure the role is filled when they do retire. My understanding is the department is looking at either long-service employees or senior level employees. I would suggest that the department also consider mid-service employees and/or maybe even people who are newly entered into the job or into the department or office and people who don’t maybe necessarily have the amount of knowledge that is totally required but that they can work themselves into the job. I guess what I’m trying to suggest is we don’t limit ourselves by saying we are going to use long-service employees. That totally eliminates anybody who isn’t considered a long-service employee. I would encourage the department to look beyond maybe what the words say. If we’re going to mentor people, that we look as wide as possible and ensure that we get somebody who is backing up the position of somebody who is going to retire or try to fill a position that is currently vacant. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Again, I’ll treat that as a comment. Committee, we’re on page 3-15, activity summary, management and recruit services, operations expenditure summary, $4.337 million. Committee agree?

Page 3-16, information item, management and recruitment services, active positions. Any questions?

Seeing none, page 3-19, activity summary, strategic human resources, operations expenditure summary, $9.943 million. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to follow up a little bit on succession planning, which I think this division is largely responsible for. This has been highlighted for a number of years now and our workforce has been aging, basically, as I understand it. I think we had a significant proportion of employees, something like 20 percent or maybe much more than that that were within five years of retiring. What is the current trend on that measure, whatever it is? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member refers to a knowledge transfer for succession. We have a strategy to do that. We work with all the departments. It is part of our Workplace Planning Strategy. The idea is to look at the individuals who are working for the government that are in the twilight of their career and we would ensure that their knowledge is being transferred to individuals that would be taking their positions. So, we are actively engaged with the Department of Human Resources to ensure that happens.

I was aware of that. I probably wasn’t clear with the question I’m asking. I’m asking more specifically on where we are at in achieving our goals. What are the statistics that indicate the trend in our succession planning? It used to be X percent in five years are going to retire. What’s the change? Thank you.

For more detail, I’ll ask the deputy minister to provide that.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Ms. Bassi-Kellett.

Thank you, Ms. Bassi-Kellett. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the deputy minister for that information. I didn’t get my statistic again, but I think I heard that it’s not a reliable statistic anymore. Perhaps we don’t have

any statistics that indicate our succession with all these tools to deliver succession planning. Forty years is great in one way, but in another way people may not be able to retire, and I think we are hearing that across this great country, and there’s a possibility that the types of policies we are putting in place are failing people and their interest in retiring early and moving on to other productive pursuits in their retirement. Obviously a big concern potentially. It would be nice to know what’s happening there.

One of the things was double filling positions in the last six months when people indicate that they are going to retire. How much are we using that tool? How many instances? I believe it was proved as a tool or certainly emphasized in 2011-12. What’s our experience to date? Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. We’ll go to Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We don’t have the numbers of the overall corporate numbers for the GNWT on the succession planning on who’s matched up with individuals who are soon to retire. We will be able to provide that information to committee.

I appreciate the Minister’s offer. I think we’ll take him up on that.

My last question is, just looking at the budget, it’s increased substantially, about 50 percent or more since 2012-13. I think we’re putting a lot more emphasis on employee development and workforce planning.

What is the evaluation of these investments, this additional 50 percent? What is the evaluation of the effectiveness of those investments showing? Thank you.

That will require a bit of a detailed response. I will have the deputy minister provide that.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Ms. Bassi-Kellett.

Thank you, Ms. Bassi-Kellett. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Those are all the questions I had. I appreciate that information. I guess I would note some of these things are meant to be funded I think out of the vacant positions. Obviously, we have over 600 vacant positions to be staffed and inactive that are funded on any one day. That’s a lot of moola. We know that those dollars are being used for many of these things, so if they are funded specifically on top of that, as well, I think there needs to be some real clarity in reporting and evaluation on those fronts. I will leave it at that comment. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Comment noted. Committee, we are on 3-19, activity summary, strategic human resources, operations expenditure summary, $9.943 million. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Page 3-20, information item, strategic human resources, active positions. Any questions?

Seeing none, 3-23, activity summary, regional operations, operations expenditure summary, $2.721 million. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Page 3-24, information item, regional operations, active positions. Any questions? Ms. Bisaro.

Mr. Chair, what page are we on? I think I might have got ahead of myself.

Page 3-24.

Mr. Chair, there are no questions here.

I will read it out again. Information item, regional operations, active positions. Any questions? Seeing none, 3-27, activity summary, labour relations, operations expenditure summary, $2.818 million. Does committee agree? Ms. Bisaro.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I just have a couple questions here. I’d like to know from the department, at one point we had a great number of grievances and the department was diligently working their way through the grievances and trying to bring them down to a reasonable number. Between last year and this year, projected budget year, can I get some kind of an idea of whether the number of grievances we have had has gone up or down or has it stayed steady? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will have the deputy minister respond to that.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Ms. Bassi-Kellett.

Thank you, Ms. Bassi-Kellett. Ms. Bisaro.

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thanks to Ms. Bassi-Kellett for that. That’s good to hear. I hope it stays down there.

My other question has to do with the duty to accommodate. I believe the department has put a bit of a focus on the accommodation of employees who have been off due to injury or some for disability, but I am referencing generally injury. There will be times when a department makes an offer to an employee who is returning to work to accommodate them in a certain way and the employee disagrees. When there is a problem like that and the two parties can’t reach any kind of an agreement, is there any kind of an appeal mechanism for the employee to appeal somewhere, maybe to the Department of HR, I’m not sure, but is there an appeal mechanism for someone who feels that they have not been accommodated properly? If not, then what avenue is there for an employee who feels that they haven’t been adequately accommodated? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. We will go to Minister Beaulieu.

Mr. Chair, we have developed some positions specifically for this. We have two regional duty to accommodate advisors that we have hired to work with the existing advisor to manage the caseload. We have located those two positions in Hay River and Inuvik. There were over 150 active case files underway. As of the 15th of December 2013, it was 64 cases here and with the Tlicho, 50 in the South Slave and 42 in the Beaufort-Delta. We are trying to move to where the greatest volume is.

I’m not sure I quite understood the Minister’s answer. We have 150 people that we are trying to accommodate. I think that is what he told me. I appreciate confirmation to that if that is correct.

If there is someone who simply is not happy with the accommodation that has been offered and there have been negotiations back and forth and they simply cannot come to an agreement between the new department and the individual or the department where the individual is returning to work, I guess I should say, if that happens, is there an appeal mechanism for me as an employee? I don’t like what I’ve been offered, or I have been offered several things and I don’t like any of them, I have valid reasons for not accepting, what can I do at this point? The 150 that the Minister referred to, I hope those are not 150 positions or 150 people who are stuck. I hope these are just people that we’re trying to accommodate. I hope these are not people that we cannot accommodate or where we have a fight on our hands. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, these are active files ongoing, so there would be various duties offered to accommodate individuals that wish

to be accommodated by modified duties, hours, looking at worksites and equipment, providing alternate positions and/or bundling existing duties, so trying to find suitable accommodation for individuals. If we have come to a complete impasse, the file at this time is remaining open and we are continuing to attempt to accommodate. I don’t know what other alternatives would be, aside from what we can do to accommodate an individual. At some point we provide all of the accommodations that we can, and if we’re unable to successfully accommodate the person to their satisfaction, then I suppose the only alternative would be for the individuals to maybe consider leaving the government. I really don’t know what else to add other than trying every type of accommodation that we can to try to accommodate our staff.

Thanks to the Minister and I appreciate that the department does everything they can. I think that the department where the employee is returning to work probably also does everything they can, but what I thought I heard the Minister say was, when push comes to shove, if I as an employee can’t be accommodated, then sort of the only thing that’s left is for me to quit my job or to be pushed out of my job. I don’t think that’s the intention of the government, but that’s kind of what I’m hearing.

There must be some avenue, and maybe if it’s even if the Minister says that the person has to go to Human Rights to appeal, but there must be some avenue that the employee and/or the employer can take to try and solve this impasse, even if it’s to go to mediation or arbitration of some sort. So is there something like that when things get really bad? Thank you.

The duties to accommodate would be offers from government in an attempt to accommodate the employee. All of the things I’ve mentioned, such as duties, hours, worksite, other jobs, other positions, bundling existing duties to create a position in an attempt to accommodate. If after that the employee continues to refuse all of the accommodations, then I don’t know what else we can do, but maybe I can ask the deputy minister to see if I have missed anything on anything further that we can do to try to accommodate an employee.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Ms. Bassi-Kellett.