This is page numbers 3523 – 3556 of the Hansard for the 17th Assembly, 5th Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was going.

Topics

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is certainly a great pleasure to have the opportunity to follow up on my Member’s statement. I want to find out, first and foremost, what is the government doing to promote these 800 vacancies, as

highlighted by the government, and certainly reaffirmed by the Minister of Finance that 571 jobs are being actively recruited by this government.

I will ask the Minister of Human Resources, what is he doing to ensure that Northerners have an opportunity at these jobs first and foremost, because when you look on the website it only shows about 100, 120 jobs. Where are we hiding them?

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

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

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is our mode of communicating with individuals. A careers website is what we’re using to advertise for the people that are looking for jobs in the NWT. The departments, various departments are constantly trying to advertise the jobs on the career website. If there are 100-and-something jobs on there, I can check with the department to just determine why there are not more jobs on the career website at this time.

Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

I’ve been contacted by public members who have gone to the job website and are not seeing them there. Of course, it’s a huge concern of theirs that they feel that the government is slapping them in the face when the first whistle stop is Ottawa. What’s next? Vancouver, maybe Edmonton, before Inuvik or Hay River or even Yellowknife?

My question now to the Minister of Human Resources is: What is he going to do to demonstrate that he’s in charge of this file and showing that he’s actively looking for people in the Northwest Territories for these jobs? Because right now, as everybody knows, these small communities have an over 30 percent unemployment rate, and right now they see no hope, and demonstrations like this prove that the government has abandoned them.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe

The Department of Human Resources does work with all departments in trying to fill the vacant positions in the small communities. We are well aware of the employment rate in the small communities, that they are very low.

If we could fill all the jobs in the small communities, we would do that, and we constantly work with the departments to determine which jobs can be filled, which jobs we’re having difficulty filling and so on. In the small communities, I recognize, as a Member from a small community, we need to have jobs in the small communities, and we are doing everything possible to fill those jobs.

Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

Mr. Speaker, the Bureau of Stats website is an amazing source of information. It says there are about 2,000 people unemployed who are looking for work in the Northwest Territories. That

800 set of jobs would do significant damage to that 2,000 level of unemployed, Mr. Speaker.

The last point I will make, in the Handley government it was 5.65 percent unemployment; in the Roland government it was 6.625 percent unemployment; and now in the McLeod government we are now into 8.15 percent unemployment in the Northwest Territories.

What is this Minister going to do to put a dent into this huge level of unemployment? Thank you.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe

Mr. Speaker, I know that we need some infrastructure in the communities where the employment rates are low. Some of those positions can’t be filled unless individuals are brought into the community to fill those jobs, because some of those positions need some qualifications that are not easily attained in some of the smaller communities. The jobs that can be filled in the smaller communities with individuals that have the qualifications in those communities will be filled, but when we have to bring people in…

As I indicated in my response earlier, of the 570 active positions that we are trying to actively recruit across the government, I believe that the number, I don’t have it right here in front of me, but I believe the number was that 325, or something like that, required a university degree. In order to get somebody to fill those positions that has a university degree, we have to have individuals within the Northwest Territories with university degrees looking for work – we have a very small percentage of those people – or we have to go south to try to get those individuals to fill the positions. At this time, unless we are changing the job completely, then that is a completely different discussion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

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

Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

Mr. Speaker, I am well aware of the government doing placement opportunities, giving Northerners a chance. I hear from the public and they are concerned that these job opportunities are being held away from them. In other words, that they’re not seeing these opportunities and benefits. Of course, at the same time as the last point is, they start to ask themselves, why bother to live and invest here with their families in the future if this government shows little interest in them.

I want to know what this Minister is going to do to show that these jobs matter, and that Northerners matter, and we are going to try to hire for some of these 800 jobs that are open. I actually think it is more than 800, but we will get that cleared up here in the next day or two.

What is this Minister going to do to demonstrate that Northerners matter and we care about their families and we care about their investment in the Northwest Territories? Whether they are in a big

community or a small community, it matters. Thank you.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe

Mr. Speaker, it does matter; I agree. This is a reason why we are trying to put infrastructure into the small communities.

In some of the larger centres, we do have very good employment rates. An example is the employment rate in the city of Yellowknife is over 80 percent; across the country it is 69 percent. The issue is not really because we don’t have infrastructure here, we don’t have infrastructure in the small communities. The low employment numbers in the small communities are due to education and housing and other office space and other infrastructure that’s needed to attract people into these small communities.

We are trying to put those things in place so that it could become a place where individuals could work. Without those things it is very difficult to recruit positions. We are trying to recruit what we can with the people in the communities, but if we have to bring someone in, we have to be able to provide them housing and a place to work. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Hawkins.

Question 73-17(5): GNWT Position Vacancies
Oral Questions

February 9th, 2014

Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to follow up on what the Minister of Human Resources continues to keep talking about. He keeps talking about infrastructure.

I fail to understand why infrastructure is such an issue with Northerners being hired, but it’s okay to go to Ottawa to hire people even though we may not have infrastructure here. Maybe the Minister of Human Resources can explain what infrastructure means and, in that regard, why it matters when it comes to employing Northerners but infrastructure isn’t an issue when you go to Ottawa to hire those folks there. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

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

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The career fair in Ottawa was one method that we were using to try to attract individuals to the North. They come to the North; they would be subjected to the same type of infrastructure and housing deficiencies as anyone else here.

We are also trying to advertise in the North. We have open houses. We’ve had one in Simpson. We’re going to continue to have open houses the next couple of months in all of our centres where we have career centres. We are going to have these open houses to try to bring people from these

communities to the open house and talk about their potential career with the public service.

We are not ignoring individuals in the Northwest Territories. We’re open for business and we do accept people’s applications. People who apply, we accept their applications. We had a lot of applications, and I indicated earlier that we had 1,704 staffing actions last year. Not all of them are hires, but many of those are part of our recruitment process. Thank you.

Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

Mr. Speaker, we still fail to seem to get the answer to why these 800 jobs are, what I would say, a relative secret. Why would we be hiding these employment opportunities to Northerners? When you go to the website and you don’t see them there but it is okay to take the show on the road to Ottawa, and maybe make one northern stop, what’s the government’s benefit of keeping them a secret? Thank you.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe

Mr. Speaker, they are not a secret, so it would be difficult to answer a question that leads with why is it a secret. Thank you.

Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

Can the Minister say for certain that every one of these, whether it is 500, 800 or 1,000 jobs that are open today, that we know they are actively campaigning, because I am sure they are not flying around the country wasting people’s time.

Can the Minister guarantee that every one of these jobs is posted on our careers website, encouraging people to apply far and wide? Thank you.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe

No, I cannot guarantee that all of those 571 jobs will be on the career website and advertised soon; however, I will guarantee that we will be doing a full presentation to committee on exactly what the issues are with the vacancy rates and our complications with filling all of these positions and why these positions are vacant, where they are vacant and where we are having difficulties recruiting. I will assure the Member that tomorrow morning we will be putting a full presentation together and talking about all of the vacancy rates. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

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

Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Of course, the final question begs the question about, you know, where is the money. Some of these jobs were probably vacant a short period, some are probably vacant long periods, but when you add up to 571 jobs, as stated by the Finance Minister, that’s a lot of money sitting doing nothing.

So the question is: How much money are we talking about and where is it going if it’s not employing people? That answer certainly deserves a little light and the public deserves to know. Thank you.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe

Mr. Speaker, even though the position is vacant, the job still has to be done. Often the positions are filled with a casual, and also when we have some vacancy rates, we create some money for summer students so we are able to hire summer students. It is very important to us as a government, when these kids are out at university or college, when they come back to the Northwest Territories that we try to employ them so they have a better chance of success when they go back to school. Last year we employed 308 summer students. If we had every position filled to the max all the time and there was absolutely no vacancy rate, that would be one program that we would have to cut, the Summer Student Employment Program. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

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

Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. What can the Minister do to show us where that money is going? This Legislature votes for that particular money to be allocated for a very specific purpose. I don’t know the FMB rules that tightly to be able to say if you take that money and spend it somewhere else, you’ve breached that. I can’t say that today, but I am certainly going to look into it. How do we account for that money? If it’s not going to these jobs, the public sees it, rightly, as a slush fund to do whatever they want. So how do we know the money is going exactly to what it was designed for and passed in this Legislature for? Will the Minister explain that and guarantee it and also demonstrate it in writing to this Legislature? Thank you.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe

The money to hire employees for the GNWT is there and we use that money for that purpose only. We don’t spend it on other things. Tomorrow morning we will be able to demonstrate in committee the full program of vacancies, hires, and we can do comparisons with the main estimates. We are prepared to do all that. We had promised committee we would do that work and we are doing that tomorrow morning. Thank you.