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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Regional Recruitment Strategy is one where a position would be identified by a department. Of all the vacant positions that may be in the region, the department would identify a position and then determine that that position would be one that can

be filled by an individual that does not have all of the skills necessary to do that function at this point but can be trained up.

We are having some difficulties finding the key positions in the department; however, we have found some. We managed to put one individual on, like the Member said. We have five more individuals where we’re developing training plans and those ones are underway, so we’re looking at that. We have four more applicants where the department is developing a job description type of thing, one in management, so we’re looking for an individual with certainly some schooling and some skills that can be brought into a management level. We’re actually looking at a nursing position, as well, with one of the health authorities, an officer position, and a clerical position as well.

That’s definitely something that’s good to hear about. It’s a lot better update than the one we received during the winter session where there was just one individual in the program. Should an employee of the GNWT or somebody looking for a job would want to get into this type of program, how is the person able to access the department rather than the department recognizing these positions and just looking at filling them.

How can an individual approach the department, their manager or even the Department of Human Resources? What steps would an employee of the GNWT need to take to get advancement in their career under the Regional Recruitment Strategy?

A good point of contact for us has been the government service officer. The government service officers who have worked in the communities that they’re responsible for put a list of individuals in the community that they feel that have achieved Grade 12, and from that list the government service officers have talked to the regional directors. It’s a standing item with the regional directors at the regional management committee meetings and they’re communicating that back to the Human Resources department. In Human Resources, we have a regional recruitment specialist, and that individual then works with the department. Once the position has been identified and potential candidates have been identified, then we work with the human resource specialist to draft job descriptions and then we move forward with the department on that. That would be the good point of contact. You can also just contact the human resources division through our employment website.

Thank you. I’d just like to ask the Minister, under this Regional Recruitment Strategy, he mentions that managers look at filling positions.

Have any of these positions resulted in direct appointments from the managers or from the department position that didn’t go out for public

contest? Have any of these positions been direct appointments?

Mr. Speaker, the reason for the whole thing would be direct appointments; it’s a direct appointment process. We go through the regular direct appointment process. The individual managers, unless they’re dealing with a person that’s affected, cannot direct appoint. Individuals affected through layoff would be the only way where an individual can go through the process back to the Minister as a Human Resources direct appointment. Otherwise, all direct appointments go through Cabinet. So there have been no direct appointments through the Regional Recruitment Program. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Under the new program, I was hoping that we’d see more of these jobs being filled by people that aren’t employed in the GNWT or ones that are already at GNWT and can advance to management positions. I understand that we’re also reviewing our Public Service Act that reflects these direct appointments. The reason I’m getting into direct appointments is because I have had concerns of our P1 residents of the Northwest Territories not getting jobs and losing most of the jobs to people that have been living in the North not very long.

I just want to ask the Minister, what is he doing to address that issue where our P1s are being overlooked for jobs when we have a program here that’s supposed to promote and enhance and train and develop our northern residents? Thank you.

Thank you. A representative public service is a priority of this government. We have asked, through my office I have talked to the deputy minister of Human Resources and advised the deputy minister of Human Resources that I wish to see all of the human resource plans from all of the departments, that she was to talk to all of the deputy ministers across the GNWT to look at the human resource plans and determine how the departments are going to raise the level of Priority 1 candidates in each of the departments. So we are doing that. We’re examining that to determine how the numbers look now so we have some department-by-department, community-by-community statistics. From there we will look at where we see the key issues being or the key areas where there are issues and we’ll be approaching those issues within the various departments across the GNWT.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member’s statement today in the House captured some of the potential in terms of hooking in some of the communities in his riding, Providence, Kakisa, to the grid. It’s just a question of where are the resources available to do that and we are working on that piece as well. Thank you.

The question that I have is the Energy Action Plan outlines the potential expansion of the southern goods from the South Slave region. I wanted to see and to know whether there has been any regard or consideration for the benefits that communities in and around that area could derive from the expansion of the grids, especially at the end of the day the consumers that have to contend with the high and increasing rate of fuel.

How would the communities benefit from such an expansion? Mahsi.

If there was one of the two options that the Member talked about in his statement, if one of those was put into effect, either the running of the grid north along the west side across the bridge up to Behchoko or running a low voltage line down as the Member suggested in his statement, both would have the benefit of taking two communities off of diesel-generated electricity and would bring the costs in line with Yellowknife and would drop the emissions. It would be a much better long-term solution for all and would get a big chunk of community needs off of fossil fuel.

In terms of the next steps for the Energy Action Plan that the government is contemplating and in development, what can we expect in terms of this series of steps that could come about within the year in terms of advancing the plan? Mahsi.

Thank you. The government will continue to invest, as we’ve laid out in our business plan, in relatively modest investments that we can afford in the different areas with renewables, with solar, with biomass, with energy efficiencies, rebate programs, those types of

things. We’re also looking to successfully conclude our negotiations and discussion with the federal government on our increased borrowing limit that would give us the opportunity to sit down and talk about these economic investments, be it grid expansions in the North and South Slave, road expansion between Wrigley and Norman Wells, those type of things where we would be able to come to the table and talk to industry through a P3 type of process about how do we partner in those type of things.

So, in the short-term, it’s going to be the business we already have committed, longer term it’s going to be a successful conclusion to give us the tools to make those investments. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The issue I want to ask questions on today is a continuation of my Member’s statement. During my Member’s statement I talked about the importance of a health care card that is secure. I’ve promoted the idea before and I’ve done a fair bit of research recently. I found it quite interesting that British Columbia actually has a photo I.D. health care card, but what’s interesting about theirs in particular is they include their driver’s licence on it as well. It simplifies one’s life.

Ontario has been doing this since 2007 and they have many and critical pieces we don’t have time to go through here today, but just highlight things such as magnetic strip, organ donor.

So, knowing that health care is so important, I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services, would he be interested in investigating this type of process as we proceed to our next renewal of health care cards, which is in about two to three years? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Member for bringing this to our attention today and also for providing me with his research. I think it’s a really good idea. I think we should do the research and I commit to having the department do research and analysis into the different types of cards that are out there like BC, and I think BC is certainly an interesting model where they’ve combined driver’s licence and health care cards. There might be cost-saving opportunities there for us. So I commit today to having the department do that review and we’ll be able to provide that information to the Members with a cost analysis on what potential costs could be...(inaudible)…in 2015. Thank you.

Thank you. That’s an awful tough answer to come back to because that was pretty much everything I wanted. So the only other thing that I would ask is it’s important, as I pointed out, that British Columbia links it to their driver’s licence.

So, just to be very clear, did the Minister, and I saw him nodding his head, but I’ll let him speak to this issue, that they work with the Department of Transportation to find out if this is something they could progress to merge towards a one-card system that makes sense?

The last thing, Mr. Speaker, is I’ve already got pretty much what I wanted, unless he takes it back, which wouldn’t be the first time. Minister Roland did that to me. A lot of small communities, you can get your driver’s licence done with a photo ID process. To me this could help blend it. That’s the point I want to make sure, is that it’s accessible throughout the territory. Thank you.

I think these questions are timely given that we don’t have a renewal again until 2016. So that gives a bit of time to do the analysis that the Member has asked for, including models like BC which may be reasonable. I will certainly work with the Minister of Transportation to see if there are any opportunities for us to expand and have a joint card. I won’t take it back. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.