Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger, final short supplementary, Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Minister for his reply and, of course, working with communities. I know some have predicted, especially people that work in, of course, predicting the weather. They have indicated that it could be a hot, dry season this year, and of course, the department is also equally responsible for forest fire management, but with this tiny little morel that grows in the wild, I mean, are we ready in terms of managing and monitoring and regulating perhaps the transient people that might come up North?

We will continue to deal with the issue of morel harvesters as we have in the past, recognizing that it’s work and a process that needs improving, which we are embarking on, and we will continue to work with the Member and with other communities where this issue comes, depending on where the fires are, and what happens with the morel harvest itself. Right now we have to deal with the tools we have, but we are committed to improving our ability to regulate that particular transient industry.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my statement I talked about the exciting first day of session and under the new regime of devolution. My questions today will be for the Premier of the Northwest Territories. He has indicated that a public review of the devolution legislation will begin, and he has indicated a website, but I’m just wondering: can the Premier elaborate on how this public consultation will happen on the review of devolution legislation?

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We started even before devolution came into effect, by a public information campaign so that the people in the public could understand what devolution was all about. We’ve activated the website. We put information in all the newspapers with regard to devolution. We have an interactive website now where we will be asking the public to correspond with, and we will be collecting all of that information with the objective of having it in place in the fall. Then we expect it will take about a month to gather all of the feedback that we get through the website, and then we would report back to the committees and to the Assembly. We also will be working with the committees on this review.

I guess my next question is about the timing. The Premier indicated that he was going to be working with committee, but we are going into a summer session and we won’t be here for the summertime until we come back in the fall. I’m just wondering about the timing and would the department or the government look at extending that time so that it comes into the fall when most of the Assembly comes back as well as most of the people in the Northwest Territories go on the land and go have their kids away from school. So the focus is definitely not on politics.

Would the government look at extending that to a six-month period maybe until Christmastime, so they would get full consultation with the public?

Like the Member, we want to make sure we have a very thorough, transparent review of the devolution legislation, so we’d be quite prepared to extend the review to whatever period of time would be seen to be appropriate; December or even later to the next year, keeping in mind that the longer we extend, the more we get into transitional arrangements. But I think to be very thorough and transparent, we would be prepared to do that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Premier indicated that they are doing a survey of the website. I wonder if there is going to be any consultation, like any public meetings. I know the assemblies are coming forward in the summertime.

Are we planning to have some meetings in the different communities throughout the Northwest Territories to get public feedback that way?

We will want to look at that. We attend all of the annual assemblies. To make sure we have a thorough and transparent process, we will take that into consideration. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The next question I had was about devolution and the new positions. We’ve taken on some federal positions, but we’ve also created. I’m just wondering what the update is on those positions.

Have we hired all those people? Are we 50 percent complete? For the new positions we created for devolution, have we hired everybody? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We’ve created 206 new territorial government jobs to provide for devolution, and as of May 6th there were 60 vacant positions. Now that we’re near the end of May, I expect the majority of those jobs have been filled, but I will commit to reviewing the numbers again and provide the information to the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The honourable Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The special leave provision is part of the negotiations between the union and the Government of the Northwest Territories. If the leave, as laid out in the Human Resource Manual for firefighters and the CASARA people is a special leave, as the Member indicated, they would be following what is negotiated within the policy within the special leave requirements. Thank you.

The GNWT Human Resource Manual also has a list of various boards where GNWT employees, if appointed or elected, may access special leave for travel to attend meetings as part of their duties. Sadly, CASARA NWT board members are not on such a list.

Can the Minister indicate why CASARA NWT board members are not included and would the Minister consider such an addition? Thank you.

As I indicated, it’s something that is negotiated. If the individuals, the members of the public service that are with firefighters and CASARA wish to be on that list, then that’s something that we would look at in discussions with the union the next time our negotiation mandates are developed. Thank you.

Upon further analysis, it was evident that even the GNWT volunteer firefighters face similar hurdles when accessing special leave days to maintain their professional qualifications. This begs me to ask: how many other volunteer groups out there who contribute to the safety and security of our residents are affected with this inconsistent policy?

Can the Minister indicate to the House how he and his department will address this shortcoming? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I am currently looking into a specific request from the Inuvik group, with the idea of coming up with a solution that is satisfactory to this group and also the firefighters, as they are captured within the same section. So this is what we’re doing.

It sounds to me, just on the value of what we’re talking about right here, that it is important individuals playing an important role and that the Government of the Northwest Territories should do all they can to try to support both of these groups. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I finally want to go into a last question here, and I’m a bit perplexed. We’ve heard from the Minister today that he might look into this and that the policy might be reviewed in the next negotiation. We’re asking here today that the policy be looked at for its integrity. I believe we need to go a bit further in addressing our GNWT volunteer base who specialize in our safety and security.

Will the Minister commit to a proper review of all human resource policies applicable to these volunteers, to ensure that we are maximizing the strength of these volunteers as a valuable NWT resource? Thank you.