Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d just like to welcome the Minister and his staff for joining us today. It’s kind of neat, mainly because this is our last budget for the 17th Assembly, and I know the
Minister and his staff have appeared before standing committee on numerous occasions and we’ve had some pretty good dialogue in terms of how this department is managing its action plan but also getting some good input and advice from committee members.
I have a few things that I’d like to try to address here, and I’ll try to get it all summarized as my general comments and that way when we go into detail I don’t have to try to talk to it then.
I guess the first one, and it has always been important to me, is the Regional Recruitment Strategy and whether or not we can get an update on how this program is working and how many people have we put into senior, more management positions. The second one is this population increase action plan. You’ve heard it discussed since the beginning of this Assembly, and I just want to know what the department’s input into that
is and if they have to, in fact, have input into how we are going to get our population increased and if we’ll have jobs for people when they do come to the Northwest Territories.
Another update that I’d like to maybe get a little bit more information on is the Safe Disclosure Act. Where are we with that? Has it been utilized, and if not, how can we do a better job? In our region of Inuvik, I know there are a lot of requests for whether it’s ROEs or things of that nature, and I do know that with the staff that we have there they do a good job, but I also know that they tend to be possibly overworked sometimes and whether or not we need to create more support for our regional centres.
What has been in the news, as well, is some of our departments that are getting into such scenarios where our employees’ safety is put into jeopardy. I wonder what the department is doing working with other departments in terms of creating more safer environments, the type of training our employee staff can do to, I guess, numb a situation that can potentially be harmful to our employees.
I just want to know what the department is doing in terms of recruitment. I know we have a career fair going on up in Inuvik and whether or not the department is going to be having some type of presence there at the high school, especially for students that are looking at a career path that they might want to take, as well as students down south and how we are recruiting students in post-secondary to come back up north.
I did have some questions about vacancies, as well, but I think my colleague did a good job in asking those questions.
I know there is reference also to our 20/20 Public Service Strategic Action Plan. I’m not sure when we last got an update on that, but whether or not the department is doing a good job making progress in those five key areas that were addressed.
I’ll just leave it at that, Madam Chair. It is just more of a summary of some of the concerns and updates that I would like to see addressed. I know there are a few of them there. Thank you.